


pour me a cup, i need to wake up (i need me some love)

by riverdanceeee



Series: the klance playlist [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Firebender Keith (Voltron), Fist Fight, Fluff, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Klance AU Month 2019, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith/Lance (Voltron), Romance, Secret Identity, Tea shop AU, Waterbender Lance (Voltron), adashi, also the random vld characters have super minor roles, at the end tho ahaha, avatar characters are only mentioned, broganes, earthbender romelle, earthbending competition, high school/tea shop/coffee shop/atla au sounds rad, keith and shiro have secret identities, keith makes tea, knife fight but nothing graphic no one gets hurt, not 2 be dramatic but, romelle and keith are besties, there is a lil bit of blood and keith gets hurts but not too bad, they have a daughter at the end and its so soft look i cant believe i wrote this, they're 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 18:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17586197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdanceeee/pseuds/riverdanceeee
Summary: “Have you told him your life story?”“Lance probably already knows it,” Keith guesses, adjusting his backpack strap. “There’s so many interviews and news articles about me and Ezume that I don’t know who doesn’t know. He reads the newspaper.”“Then tell him something no one else knows about you.”"Why would I do that?”Romelle suddenly stops walking. Keith stops a couple steps ahead, turning back to look at her. She glares deliriously at him, arms motionless at her side and mouth slightly agape. “Because youlikehim?”Keith and his brother Shiro own a successful tea shop near the center of Ba Sing Se with plenty of loyal customers. Annoyingly enough, one of them is a cute guy with striking blue eyes who always orders jasmine tea, barely takes a sip of it, and tries to create small talk with Keith.





	pour me a cup, i need to wake up (i need me some love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toasttea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toasttea/gifts).



> inspo: ["helplessly" by tatiana manaois](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Vf7oQV9pg)
> 
>  
> 
> *watching atla*  
> cynthia: you should write a tea shop au  
> me: i dont like tea i like coffee  
> cynthia: and i dont like coffee i like tea?? write a tea shop au, heathen
> 
> for my bitch ass cousin's bday who doesn't have an ao3 account so i can't gift her this. happy day of birth cynthia!!  
> update: bitch ass cousin made an ao3 account

According to the news, Keith makes the best mint tea in Ba Sing Se. Refreshing taste that lingers and soothes the pain in one’s body. A perfect balance of flavor and medicinal benefits for all the tea lovers in the prized Earth Kingdom capital.

Neither him or Shiro would have suspected it. They opened their tea shop Little Leaf two months after finding refuge in Ba Sing Se. They had to escape the Fire Nation after Shiro openly criticized Fire Lord Ozai, causing mayhem in their neighborhood and guards searching for him at every corner. Keith attacked the soldiers that came after Shiro, and soon enough, the government was asking for his head too. The brothers became refugees and found their way to Ba Sing Se. They had to adopt secret identities before they went looking for work because their real names are popular Fire Nation names. In the Earth Kingdom, Keith is Kano and Shiro is Ezume, both popular Northern Water Tribe names. Their cover up story is that the Fire Nation was out for their head in the north, so they had to flee.

Before Little Leaf, the tea shop was named Juniberries. The previous owner Coran, old and tired of business, had hired the brothers to work for him while he managed the sales portion. Keith, a fanatic of tea and all of its delicacies, absolutely despised the ingredients and menus under Coran’s ownership. A little nudge to the right side and he was given permission to change the recipes of the place. Within a few days, the shop was packed every hour, customers coming in everyday to try a new tea and find their favorite, old customers returning because the drinks got better, and a few dessert aficionados tasting every pastry Shiro made.

Coran had enough money to last him and gifted Juniberries to the brothers with the promise to be given 10% of all shares in due time. The two felt it wrong to let the transaction go through without him being aware of their nationality and real names. All-knowing Coran already knew because he tuned in on their bickering, where they threw around their popular Fire Nation names. It was relieving but also a wake-up call to how much more careful they had to be.

Juniberries is very Air Nomad-related, which only makes sense because Coran hailed from the Eastern Air Temple. It didn’t make sense for them to keep the name when it didn’t feel like _them._ However, giving the shop a Fire Nation-related name would be bad for business (and social interaction), so they agreed on changing it to Little Leaf.

When Keith debuted his mint tea, they truly reached their peak. They hadn’t owned the shop for that long—barely edging four months—but the brothers earned enough money to send Keith back to school and for Shiro to expand the place.

In conclusion, Ba Sing Se hasn’t been too bad. A success story for a pair of refugee brothers is rare. Are they considered a story of hope? Yes, as Keith has been told many times before. Is anyone looking to throw Shiro or him in jail? No, doesn’t seem like it. So, is there a problem?

Yes. Not a big one, but one that is very hard to keep quiet.

Keith is a firebender.

Firebenders are notoriously inherently bad. Of course that’s only a stereotype, but it’s widely believed. Many of the people in Ba Sing Se have been horribly traumatized by firebenders, with burn scars over their skin and homes turned to ashes before their eyes. Keith can understand their fear, _really,_ but he isn’t like them. He’s never been like them and has never condoned their behavior. It isn’t fair.

That’s why no one—not even Coran—knows he is a firebender. It’s dangerous. He can be kicked out of the city if they find out. Before making tea, hiding his firebending is of the utmost importance.

Thankfully, Keith learned the way of the blade growing up, and has successfully avoided showing his fire abilities when in need to defense. The only times he uses his bending is when he needs to heat up a cup of tea or fix the oven’s heating components.

“I think we should just buy a new oven,” Shiro says. They’re seated at the dining table in their tiny apartment a floor above Little Leaf, white moon shining through their windows, faint yellow chandelier above lighting the room.

“We don’t need a new oven,” Keith mumbles as he cuts into his meat. “I turn it on every morning with these anyways.” He wiggles his fingers.

“What if someone sees you firebending?”

“Oh, like Adam and Allura, who are usually late to work?” Keith aggressively sticks his food in his mouth and chews. “I turn it on before shop opens anyways.”

“Okay, what if it stops working when you’re at school? What happens then, huh?”

Keith leans back against his chair. Shiro’s signature white fluff of hair falls over his forehead, drying from the shower taken prior to dinner, and his black muscle tee stands out against his pale skin. He raises his eyebrows.

He rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

“Good.” Shiro sips his water and smiles at him.

Keith squints at him. “You bought it already, didn’t you?”

“It’s coming in tomorrow.”

Keith presses his lips together and huffs. He understands that Shiro is older and far better at the spending side of things, but he wishes he was given a tad bit more trust in that side too. But whatever. Keith doesn’t bake, he makes tea.

“Adam working tomorrow?” he asks. Adam has been working at the tea shop since it was Juniberries and never left. He’s a nice guy from Omashu that Shiro quickly fell in love with. Working with them can be tiring, but he’d be a bonafide liar if he claimed their love and dynamic didn’t keep spirits high.

Shiro nods. “Allura too.”

Keith has school until the afternoon, and since Allura recently graduated, she’s taken up the usual hours he worked before he started. Allura is Coran’s niece and also hails from the Eastern Air Temple. The two moved to Ba Sing Se nearly ten years ago and have made themselves known as the few Air Nomads in the region. She’s also good at following his instructions and making tea.

“Any new friends at school?” Shiro dabs a napkin to his mouth. “Besides that nice blonde girl?”

“Her name is Romelle, and no, not really.”

Romelle is Keith’s best friend. Surprisingly enough, she managed to knock down the wall he built around his emotions and figured him out very quickly. Honestly, Keith doesn’t mind so much. It’s nice having someone that close to him. She’s fun to be around and balances out his quiet personality.

“What about that kid who comes into shop all the time? The one with brown hair, tan skin, blue eyes, kind of tall, orders—”

“Orders jasmine tea, takes one sip of it, takes up a seat for nearly an hour, then leaves only to come back the next day?” Keith scoffs and shakes his head. “I know he goes to my school, but I don’t want to be his friend.”

“You said he was cute.”

“Yeah, until I found out he doesn’t drink the tea I make for him everyday.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that, in the physical sense, he is cute.”

Keith tries to think of something to fight back with, but groans in defeat. Shiro softly laughs at his little brother’s embarrassment.

The annoyingly cute but nameless boy who comes into Little Leaf everyday, orders jasmine tea, barely drinks any of it, and tries to start small talk with him is the bane of Keith’s existence.

First, he _is_ cute. Unfairly so, and his parents must be held accountable for their crimes. The whole brown-wavy-hair-cinnamon-freckled-skin-sky-blue-eyes-playful-smile-sweet-voice combo is a recipe for disaster. As much as he tries not to, Keith can’t help but catch glimpses here and there of the conflictingly loyal customer who gives them money without any flavorful satisfaction. Sometimes he’ll stare at him from the kitchen and watch him read the day’s newspaper or do his homework as his tea gets cold.

Second, he doesn’t like Keith’s tea. Or that’s the only explanation he can come up with anyways. He won’t drink it but he’ll order it. Is it out of spite? Keith’s not sure. He’s never done him any wrong. Keith’s only been at the same school as him for three months, and prior to that, he doesn’t remember seeing him in Little Leaf before. He’s positive he’d remember someone who only orders jasmine tea.

Third, the small talk. Not a fan. The only thing Keith knows about his customers is their face and order. The only thing his customers know about Keith is that his name is Kano and he makes the best tea they’ve ever had. Shiro and Adam are more of the “get to know” guys, hence why they switch their time behind the register and in the back baking. Keith and Allura are more “make tea and serve it,” meaning they’re always moving around. Allura is quite sociable when it isn’t busy, but Keith isn’t. Why the annoyingly cute boy always catches him before he goes into hiding is a mystery.

“Maybe find out his name,” Shiro suggests, “so you two can be friends and you don’t have to follow Romelle around.”

Keith rolls his eyes around. “Romelle and I are fine.”

 

******

 

“I think you should listen to your brother on this one, Kano.”

Keith side-eye glares at Romelle. They’re sitting against the wall of the main building, tree a few yards away shading them as they eat their lunch. They watch the other students play soccer in the quad in front of them. Guarding the post on the right is the annoyingly cute boy, clad in the hunter green school uniform.

“Ezume just thinks I’m lonely,” Keith grunts. Jasmine Boy blocks the ball and his team loudly cheers, a few patting him on his back before they go back into the game. “I’m not lonely. I have him and you and Allura and Adam and Coran.”

“That’s not a lot,” she mumbles through a mouth full of food.

“I have Ezume and you and Allura and Adam and Coran and over twenty five tea recipes.”

“You made it sound even lonelier.”

Keith turns to look at his friend, who turns to look back at him at the same time with an unamused expression. She shrugs and swallows her food.

“All I’m saying is it’s not bad to make friends. Ezume just wants you to have a life outside of, you know, tea.”

“But all I do is make tea.”

“Exactly!” Romelle exaggeratingly thrusts her arms forward. “You gotta find something else to do, like master your bending.”

Keith straightens up. “I don’t bend.”

“Oh, right. Then encourage _me_ on my earthbending. Make music. Play a sport. Learn how to fight with a sword.” She sticks out her hand and waves it around, as if slicing the air.

“Romelle, I don’t need anymore hobbies.”

“Considering your stubbornness, you’re more likely to acquire a hobby than a new friend.”

“That’s so sweet of you to say.” He takes a swig of his water.

“Kano watch out!”

Keith looks ahead right on time to see the ball flying towards his face. He expertly ducks his head before the ball bounces off the wall and rolls to his feet. Keith looks to Romelle, who is biting back a laugh, then blinks at the ball.

“Sorry about that!” a familiar sweet voice says. Keith’s head snaps up as soon as the shadow of Jasmine Boy looms over him.

In the shade, his features are grayed over, all but his exceptionally bright blue eyes and sparkling smile. He points a finger at Keith as he bends down to get the ball.

“Kano!” he says in a cheerful tone. “Enjoying the game? My team is winning.” He stands up and strikes a winning pose, ball in one hand and the other a finger gun at his chin.

Through the immense beating of his heart, Keith manages to wave at him, lips slightly pulled back into a forced smile.

“I’ll see you later!” Jasmine Boy runs back to his game.

“Ezume, me, Allura, Adam, Coran and _that_ guy,” Romelle excitingly whispers, nudging Keith’s shoulder several times. “How does he know your name? Maybe you _are_ good at making friends!”

“Not my friend,” Keith mutters, hastily taking a bite of his sandwich. “Just some guy who comes into Little Leaf everyday. Orders jasmine tea. Doesn’t drink it. Tries to make small talk with me.”

Romelle’s jaw drops. “You have a regular, loyal customer?”

“We have a lot of those.”

“No, not like that! He’s _your_ customer. You, Kano’s! Kano’s Loyal Customer!”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Romelle grabs him by the shoulders and faces him. She has that smug grin on her face that always makes Keith a little nervous. “He goes to Little Leaf for you, silly.”

“He goes to annoy me.”

“Oh, because he gives you money but doesn’t drink your tea?”

“Yes!” Keith exclaims. “I spend a few of my precious minutes making jasmine tea, a very popular drink, for this annoyingly cute boy who goes to my school, then he has the nerve to not drink the tea I make him! He just sits there! And when I serve it to him, he asks me about my day and I don’t like it! I say ‘good’ and go! When I have Allura serve him, he asks her if he can talk to _me!_ It’s like he’s trying to annoy me!”

Romelle cocks an eyebrow. “‘Cute?’”

The bell chimes throughout the quad, signaling everyone to go back to class. The soccer game stops. Jasmine Boy holds the ball close to his chest and heads toward the gym room to put it away. He laughs along with some of his friends and Keith can hear it, hear the melody of it travel to his own ears and stash itself in the far corners of his brain.

“ _Annoyingly_ cute,” Keith fixes with a mumble.

Romelle lets go of his shoulders and giggles. “Got any classes with him?”

He heavily sighs. “Next one.”

The two head off their separate ways. Keith’s next class is history, meaning he has to listen to their extremely old teacher slowly lecture about Ba Sing Se’s history. The agenda for today? The history of the wall. And it will take up the entirety of the hour before Keith can go home and make himself a nice cup of peppermint tea.

He sits at the desk in the far back right corner where he can take a nap without anybody noticing. Students file in, choosing their regular seat and talking amongst themselves as the time passes. Keith watches the clock tick closer to the start of class, then notices Jasmine Boy hasn’t come in yet. He has less than a minute.

Right then, he stumbles in, hair disheveled in different directions and a streak of dirt plastered on the sleeve of his uniform. He looks around to find his regular seat taken, then eyes the empty one next to Keith.

Keith feels his mind cloud as he follows his movement toward him. Every step is a warning flash in his head screaming “CUTE BOY!” He should have taken a nap the moment he sat down.

“This seat taken?” he asks him, already putting his bag on the desk.

Keith shakes his head. He takes a seat.

The bell rings and the teacher clears his throat, his universal signal for “shut up.” Sighing, he pulls down a map of the city and starts lecturing.

“My name is Lance, by the way,” Jasmine Boy whispers, leaning close to him. “Unpopular Water Tribe name, unlike yours.”

Keith stares at him. It’s good to put a name to the face, but now it’s ringing in his head like a mantra. The annoyingly cute, the pretty eyes, the flawless skin, the wonderful laugh now replaced by Lance, Lance, Lance, Lance.

“We never formally introduced ourselves,” Lance says. “Even though I’ve been trying to talk to you for some time.”

Keith shrugs.

“Shy, aren’t you?”

Around cute guys, yeah. “Not normally,” Keith whispers instead.

“How so?”

“Don’t normally talk to new people.”

“Then how do you run the most popular tea shop in Ba Sing Se?”

“I make tea, not conversation.”

“Oh, trust me, I know.”

Keith bites the inside of his cheek. Lance puts on a smile, but he feels like he may have hurt his feelings. The reason he hides from Lance isn’t just because he’s bad at talking to people or doesn’t drink his tea. It’s also because Lance is cute and perhaps out of his league. Serving tea to him makes his hand shake. It came as a surprise that he even wanted to talk to Keith—broody Keith who’s bad at interviews and hardly smiles. Keith who isn’t fully himself.

“Sorry about that,” Keith apologizes. He stares at the pencil he twirls between his fingers to avoid Lance. “It-It gets busy at Little Leaf and I don’t really talk to customers.”

“You talk to friends?”

Keith nods. Lance reaches over and grabs the pencil, placing it on Keith’s desk and smiling.

“Then I’ll be your friend, Kano.”

The teacher clears his throat again, forcing the two of them to look his way. His grimey stare freezes over them. They sit up and the teacher goes back to explaining the materials used for the wall. Lance grins at him one last time.

Keith smiles too, cheeks warming at the gesture, and decides to pay attention to the teacher. He’s got a feeling the history of Ba Sing Se would be a lot more interesting if he had a different teacher, but he can’t change anything about that.

Once the bell rings, he waits for Romelle outside of class. They walk back together everyday, sometimes Romelle going to Little Leaf with him or heading home.

This time, it’s a little different.

“Mind if I walk with you to Little Leaf?” Lance perks up, scratching the back of his neck.

“Um,” Keith hesitates, wondering if Romelle would mind.

“Come with us!” Romelle cheers closely behind him. She grasps Keith’s shoulders and rests her chin on her hand. “I’m Romelle.”

“Lance,” he introduces himself. Romelle gets off Keith to shake his hand.

“I can’t go to the shop today since it’s my brother’s birthday and I got this big dinner planned,” she says, sly smile directed at her friend, “but I’ll stop by tomorrow?”

Keith glares daggers at her. Of course she’d have a perfectly good reason to leave the two of them alone. “Okay,” he says through gritted teeth.

The three walk out of school and down the cobblestone streets of Ba Sing Se, Keith sandwiched between Romelle and Lance. They talk over him, switching between their love for Shiro’s egg custard tart and the latest underground earthbending tournaments. He likes listening to their conversation, learning something new with each word said.

“I’m thinking of competing, you know,” she mentions, a light bounce to her walk.

Keith eyes widen. “What?”

“That’s so cool!” Lance says. “I didn’t know you were an earthbender!”

“I try,” Romelle says.

“Yeah, _try,_ ” Keith repeats, taking hold of her hand and pulling her aside. He blocks Lance from looking at them. “Romelle, that’s dangerous. You’re a self-taught earthbender.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not any good.”

“I know but these people are experienced earthbenders. They’re over twenty-five and all.”

“The Blind Bandit isn’t twenty-five at _all._ Kano, I’m good at earthbending. You haven’t seen me in a while but I’ll prove it to you. Just trust me with this, okay?”

Keith sighs. “Only because I trust you.”

Romelle smiles and lets go of his hand. When he looks back at Lance, he’s staring at the ground with his hands behind his back, bottom lip pouted out. Keith looks down at his hand and grimaces.

Wrong message. He got the wrong message.

“Well, this is where I go,” Romelle announces, pointing down the street they’re about to cross. “Let’s do this again sometime!”

They say their goodbyes as she walks off. Lance and Keith walk side by side in silence, the awkwardness piling up to the heavens. Keith feels like he should say something or ask him about his day but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth.

“How long have you—”

“I’m not dating Romelle,” he spats out, rushed and jumbled. He’s not sure why he said that. No, why he felt the _need_ to say that. Lance doesn’t care. Shouldn’t care. None of his business anyways. Just wanted to get that out of the way in case it became his business. Or if he suddenly cared. Keith’s hands are tightly clenched to his side. He shyly looks at Lance, whose smile grows wider by the second. “She’s, like, one of my only friends, and I don’t—I don’t like girls.”

Lance nods, trying to diminish his smile. “I was gonna ask how long you had known Romelle, but good to know.”

Keith huffs out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding back. Suddenly the stress is lifted off his back. “I just—I thought, you know…”

“Got the memo, Kano.” Lance’s smile hasn’t left his face. This is a pretty good day so far. Maybe he has to thank his brother after all.

“I’ve known Romelle for about three months,” Keith says, voice relaxed. “Since I started school.”

“Seems like a pair of unlikely friends.”

“Yeah, she’s definitely more, uh, _eccentric_ than me, but she started talking to me and we just kind of bonded. She came from Taku with her brother, without her parents, once it was abandoned and all. We related.”

Before he knows it, they’re standing in front of Little Leaf. Through the windows, the place doesn’t look too busy, but considering it’s about to be the weekend, it’ll start filling up soon. Keith braves the storm and enters the place, Lance following close behind. Allura is serving tea somewhere to the left of him, waving before she puts down the next cup, and Shiro is chatting it up with a stranger at the register.

Keith makes his way to the back and grabs his black apron. Adam is busy frosting some cookies, but manages to smile at him as a way of saying hello. Behind him is the brand new oven, steel and humming low.

“Allura left you peppermint tea on the counter,” he says, carefully piping a line, “but it’s probably cold now, so you should heat it up.”

“Thanks,” Keith says, picking up his cup of tea and secretly heating it up through his fingertips. “Liking the new oven?”

“Shiro hogged it all morning, so not too sure.”

Keith taps his fingernail on the cup. “Ezume, Adam.”

Adam looks up from his work and cranes his head to the side. “You know, I’m still trying to figure out your real name too. Kano doesn’t fit you and _Ezume_ won’t tell me.”

“That’s my choice, not Ezume’s. My brother has unwavering loyalty to the ones he loves. Consider yourself lucky.” He sips his tea as he walks away, finishing it in a couple gulps and getting right into his work. The next few orders range from the basic black tea to his special pearl-milk tea.

“One more, Tea Man,” Allura says, pinning a new order to his back board by the tea maker. “Jasmine Boy wants your mint tea today.” She walks away clicking her tongue and shooting Keith a smile.

Keith’s heart feels like it’s soaring high over uncharted territory. Something about Lance ordering his famous mint tea over the regular jasmine tea seems dangerous and risky but also exciting and brand new. The order is a little more personal too, and he thinks Lance knows that.

Within twenty minutes, Keith is finally making Lance’s order. Little Leaf has gotten far more packed, voices louder than the tranquil music they play, and he can barely find Lance through all the bodies in the place. Adam starts serving too so Allura doesn’t hold all the burden.

Thankfully it’s Allura who comes to pick up Lance’s order, not Adam. She looks down at the cup, then up at Keith. “Should I bother or do you wanna serve this?” she asks.

Keith quickly nods his head. He can hear Allura’s sinister laugh as they switch places. He picks up the cup of mint tea and goes looking for him.

Lance’s raised hand catches his attention. Keith carefully walks over, doing his best not to spill his prized possession. He places the saucer down then the cup of mint tea and smiles at Lance while bowing. Lance quickly takes hold of his wrist before he can go off and pulls him close.

“When isn’t it packed?” he asks. “Like, right when it opens? Before it closes?”

“Depends on the day,” Keith answers. He didn’t want his voice to crack, but when has anything gone Keith’s way.

“How about tomorrow?”

Whether his cheeks warm because of Lance or the immense heat in the room, Keith isn’t sure, but he can’t help feeling a tiny bit embarrassed. “Tomorrow morning is usually empty.”

Lance smiles, grand and beautiful against his skin. “I’ll come by then.”

Keith smiles back at him and runs off to serve the rest of the house, heart running miles in his chest.

When Little Leaf closes up, Allura comes up to Keith and crosses her arms, eyebrows furrowing together in concentration. Keith takes a step away from her, but she meets it with another step forward.

“You talked to Jasmine Boy!” she yells at the top of her lungs, arms flying to bear hug Keith. “You talked to Jasmine Boy!”

“I saw him pull you down and all,” says Shiro. He harshly pats his back the way an older brother always does. “I knew I’d knock some sense into you.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Keith mumbles, trying to shy away from all the attention. “His name is Lance.”

“Water Tribe!” Allura claps her hands. “Like you! Is he from the north?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is so good! I’m so happy for you!”

Keith smiles and softly punches Allura’s shoulder. He’s happy too. There was no reason for him to be afraid of Lance, but now that they’re _friends_ , he’s got all that time to make up.

 

******

 

Keith is scrubbing out dried frosting from the floor when the door to Little Leaf chimes open. Peeking over the counter, he sees Lance walk in. He wears a tan vest over a matching moss colored tunic and pants duo. His eyes scour the room.

Shameful that he looks so good in everything he wears.

“Lance!” Keith says, straightening up and waving at him. He must look a mess in the horribly stained white apron he uses to clean the shop.

“Hey, Kano,” he greets as he walks up to the counter. Keith hastily begins to untie the apron. “Wow, it really is empty.”

“Kinda rare, but it’s nice.” Keith nods. Lance nods too, drumming his fingernails against the counter.

“Any of these sweets that aren’t the egg custard good?” he asks, looking over the display.

“I like the circular fruit tarts with rose petals on top.”

“I’ll buy you one too if you, I don’t know, sit with me while I drink tea?”

Keith can’t help but snort. Drink tea, his ass. “Mint or jasmine?”

“Surprise me.”

Keith smiles and goes to the back room to get his black apron. He almost runs into Shiro and Adam, who were obviously watching him at the register. They glue themselves to the wall, as if they’re trying to channel their nonexistent camouflage abilities. Keith glares at them, doing his best to look angry.

“He looks like an oolong tea guy,” Shiro whispers.

Adam slaps his hand over his boyfriend’s mouth. “Don’t listen to him. He’s ginger.”

Keith looks at Shiro, who nods, then he shakes his head. “He’s hibiscus,” he decides on his own. _He’s_ the tea guy.

Grabbing his apron then making a beeline for the tea maker, he infuses the dried hibiscus into the boiling water. Lance is reading the day’s newspaper, insanely focused and expression changing. He can’t hide the growing grin on his face and gets so distracted that he burns his finger against the hot silver tea maker. Keith hisses and holds his hand to his chest.

“Everything okay?” Lance asks from afar. Keith snaps his head toward him and smiles.

“All good, yeah,” he assures him. Keith makes enough for the both of them and pours the steaming hibiscus tea into cups. He places them on a tray along with the fruit tart slices and heads to the table.

Lance folds his newspaper and puts it to the side. “What is it?” He points at the tea.

“Hibiscus.” Keith takes a sip of his own, fruity yet bittersweet. “Flower-based, like jasmine. Just red.”

“You know, red is my favorite color.”

A voice in the back of his head reminds him red is the color of fire. Of the element he can bend at the snap of his fingers, of the place he once called home.

_I_ am red, Keith embarrassingly thinks.

“I didn’t know.” Keith takes a bite out of the fruit tart and the flavor of mango he loves so much explodes in his mouth. “My favorite color is blue.”

“That’s so _Water Tribe_ of you, Kano. Are you from the north?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m from the south. It’s pretty small, so I figured I would have recognized you if you came from over there.”

“North is big. Easy to get lost.” In all honesty, Keith doesn’t know the first thing about the Northern Water tribe, and every time he’s asked about the place, he keeps it short and vague. Keith’s eyes roam over Lance’s filled tea cup. Not a single sip yet. “When did you come to Ba Sing Se?”

“Mm, two years ago I’d say, a few months after my seventeenth birthday. Whole family came over. Our village was attacked by the Fire Nation. Burned our homes, took our people hostage. They burned my sister’s leg.” Lance takes a bite out of the fruit tart, chewing for a few seconds before he licks his lips. Though the treat is sweet, his face goes sour thinking about the event. “Her entire leg is covered in burn scars and she didn’t have the strength to walk for months.”

Keith takes a sip of his tea and averts his eyes from Lance. His family is a victim of ambush-style firebending. The kind that forces him to hide his own abilities out of fear of being denounced or kicked out of the safest city left in the world. An ability that makes him fear he’s going to lose his family, lose his friends, maybe even lose Lance.

“How long have you been here?”

Keith counts the months in his head. “Less than a year. Nine months. Fire Nation was out for Ezume’s head. And mine.”

“Wow, what’d you do?”

“Said a few mean things.”

Lance shakes his head and sighs. “They’re not too keen on the whole human rights thing over there, huh.”

Keith softly chuckles. “No, not really. I was still a minor too.”

Just then, a new customer comes in. A Saturday morning regular who’s part of the Dai Li. Always orders lavender tea, which messes with the strong warrior image he’s supposed to portray, and sometimes takes a bag of fried dough with him. Keith is about to get up and help him when Shiro greets him hello first. He sends him a wink to signal he’s got it and Keith returns it with a smile.

“So, any hobbies?” Lance dives back in, taking another bite of the fruit tart. “These are really good by the way.”

“I make tea,” he says. Keith doesn’t have a ton of hobbies outside of tea-making, firebending, and sword fighting. Two of those are hobbies he doesn’t like many to know.

“Is that it?”

He nods and finishes his tea. “You?”

Lance leans back against his chair, tapping his chin as he ponders. “I know how to play a lot of sports. I like reading. Stars are cool. I’m good at math. I like gardening.” His eyes follow the movement behind Keith. The Dai Li soldier pays for his food and tea to-go, then walks out of Little Leaf. Lance suddenly leans forward, shoulders hunched and elbows on the table. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve too.”

His fingers hover over his cup of tea and slowly move up. The hibiscus tea flows up with his fingers and follow their movement as Lance creates a swirling motion and makes the red water dance before Keith’s eyes. He’s in absolute amazement—never has he met a waterbender, much less seen one in action. It’s smooth and calm, the exact opposite of the fire Keith deals with, and looks effervescent in the air. Lance guides the tea back into the cup and smiles at Keith.

“You’re cute.”

Keith blinks and snaps out of his daze. “What?”

Lance laughs behind his hand and its melody stashed in Keith’s head is filled up once again. “Your eyes went all, like, bedazzled and your jaw kind of dropped. Could have drooled if I went on. It’s cute.”

Keith’s stomach twists in different directions. He didn’t hear incorrectly or anything, nope. The ethereal, hard to believe, out of his league Lance called him cute.

“You too,” Keith whispers. Most of him hopes Lance didn’t hear that, but a microscopic, barely visible to the eye part of him is praying on his knees that he did.

Instead, Lance just smiles. “How about you? Any tricks up _your_ sleeve?”

Subject change. He has to switch the subject before he outs himself to a cute guy because of his lack of self control. “Not any as cool as your waterbending. I’ve never met a waterbender.”

Lance’s eyebrows crease together. “But you’re from the Northern Water Tribe.”

_Shit._

“Here!” Keith covers up, finger pointing down at the table. “In Ba Sing Se! A lot of Water Tribe people I meet can’t bend. Ezume, for example.”

_Thump, thump, thump_ racks his heart against his ribcage. Normally, Keith is amazing at keeping up his facade because he hardly interacts with anyone. Allura doesn’t ask him about his past because it’s pointless conversation—there’s a possibility Coran told her anyways but she kept playing the game. Adam knows whatever Shiro’s told him, and Keith doesn’t know what that consists of. Romelle knows absolutely nothing, just the same story he’s told everyone else. He needs to be more careful.

“The only other waterbenders I know are my older brothers,” Lance sighs and frowns. “Waterbending isn’t looked _down_ upon it’s just—Ba Sing Se isn’t exactly a prime waterbending area. My friend Hunk’s from the Northern Tribe but can’t bend, so he can’t understand my struggle. My other friend Pidge is an out-of-control earthbender who only bends to trip the teachers at school or win a soccer game. I’m guessing you…”

Lance switches his attention to Keith’s fingers. He clenches his hands. “I don’t bend either.”

“I need to find some waterbender friends. All these earthbenders make me feel weird. Need some diversity.”

Keith snorts. “What, you want to go find the Avatar? Befriend an airbender?”

“Oh, I’d befriend Katara too. Now _she’s_ a waterbender. Slicker than I’ll ever be.”

Keith bites his bottom lip. “You trying to befriend a firebender too?”

A risky question, but one he feels necessary to know the answer to.

Lance huffs a laugh and finishes his dessert. “Yeah, why not?”

 

******

 

For the past month, every morning that Romelle and Keith walk to school together, she asks about how his weekend with Lance went. In another dimension, he’d probably be annoyed, but he’s stuck in one where he _wants_ to tell her everything about Lance. He does the same after every weekday shift at Little Leaf with Allura. Weekend talk—the days Lance and Keith have more times to themselves—is reserved for Romelle.

“Still not drinking my tea,” he complains. Horse drawn carriages go by them on the street. Children in uniform run to school, idly passing by adults that barely manage to not hit them. “He says to surprise him on weekends. I’ve given him hibiscus, oolong, ginger, matcha, chamomile, and lemon, and still he doesn’t drink it.”

“Have you asked him why?” Romelle asks. “I’m sure he’d give you an answer. Doesn’t seem like he’s holding back from you since he basically told you his life story.”

“At this point I just don’t think he likes the way I make tea. He’ll eat the fruit tart Ezume makes just fine but God forbid he finishes his tea.”

“I’m sure it’s not like that.” She stops him and grabs both of his shoulders. Keith’s head slightly droops down and Romelle bends to look him in the eyes. “Kano, you make the best damn tea in Ba Sing Se. Competing tea shops are only still open because your customers go there when Little Leaf is full. You’ve served the Earth King _your_ mint tea. You and your brother brought that business to life. Both of you are so good at your jobs you were given Juniberries and made it your own. So like _hell_ pretty blue eyed Lance doesn’t like _your_ tea. I’m sure he has a reason.”

Though his bottom lip quivers, Keith manages to present her a sincere smile. Romelle squeezes his shoulders then turns them around to keep walking.

“You happen to call him cute again?” she teases.

Keith lightly slams into her side, causing her to lose balance. They both laugh into the sunny morning.

“Have you told him your life story?”

“He probably already knows it,” he guesses, adjusting his backpack strap. “There’s so many interviews and news articles about me and Ezume that I don’t know who _doesn’t_ know. He reads the newspaper.”

“Then tell him something no one else knows about you.”

They take a right turn and are at their school. Metal gates rise high over them and students run inside to meet their friends.

“Why would I do that?”

Romelle suddenly stops walking. Keith stops a couple steps ahead, turning back to look at her. She glares deliriously at him, arms motionless at her side and mouth slightly agape.

“Because you _like_ him?”

A furious heat rises in his cheeks.

Okay, maybe he does. The past three weeks with Lance have been the most fun (and flirtatious, Keith thinks) he has had in awhile. Lance is a lively spirit, one of the few that makes him laugh and spit out his tea, and Keith never feels bored around him. He isn’t nervous to talk to him anymore. Of course he’s handsome, but he’s also human. He’s got a great sense of humor and a feverish sense of pride that isn’t overwhelming. Lance always has a story to tell but is more than willing to hear a new one too. He listens to Keith.

Recently, Keith realized he doesn’t like having only Shiro, Adam, Romelle, Allura, and Coran in his life. Ba Sing Se is still a new city to him. Coddled up in Little Leaf isn’t doing him any good. Lance, however, has made him want to branch out. Social interaction isn’t so intimidating when he’s with Lance. Lance is accepting. Lance is the rainbow after the rain. He’s placed butterflies in Keith’s stomach and awakens them whenever he’s in proximity.

There’s only one problem: Keith can’t tell him who he is. Can’t tell him he’s a firebender who attacked soldiers that came after his brother, scorched their skin and ran away. Can’t tell him his name isn’t Kano, that he doesn’t know the first thing about the Northern Water Tribe, that he fed him lies and made him believe he knows who Keith is. Who Keith _really_ is.

When he first came to Ba Sing Se, Shiro said their new backstory shouldn’t be seen as a lie. He knew Keith hated lies above anything else because he was told too many growing up. His trust issues force him to keep his social circles small out of fear. Keith had trouble being the one telling the lies. Their Water Tribe backstory should be seen as a means of survival instead. This was their last chance to make things work and escape persecution.

“Kano!” Lance’s voice is as clear today’s sky. Keith’s head snaps to the left, where Lance is jogging up to him with a radiant smile.

Romelle quickly steps toward Keith and pats his cheeks. “You’re blushing!” she whispers. “Stop it!”

Keith scowls at her and removes her hands from his face. Romelle laughs at him.

“Hey Lance!” she says and waves at him.

Lance waves back at her and gives Keith a hug. Over his shoulder, Keith watches Romelle make a variety of funny faces at him, point at the two and silently laugh. Keith frowns at her and hugs Lance back. He’s given Lance a few hugs—which, considering he’s not one to like hugs, is weird—but each one feels like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. There’s no point in pretending he doesn’t like Lance’s hugs at least. Romelle jumps up and down in excitement.

“I’ve got a meeting with a teacher right now,” Lance says, walking backwards into the school, “so I’ll see you in history class!” He turns away and runs to the main building.

“Bye,” Keith says, voice going soft at the end. Romelle punches his arm, making Keith wince, and she pulls at her hair dramatically.

“You’ve got it bad!” she teases.

“Romelle, stop,” he pleads and crosses his arms over his chest. He starts walking past the gate and into the crowds of students in the courtyard. “We’re just friends.”

Romelle catches up to him, pressed against him to avoid hitting others. “I bet he likes you too.”

“Yeah? What’s your proof?”

“Kano, he’s gone to Little Leaf everyday for months just to talk to you. He doesn’t have a crush on Allura.”

“That’s all you got?”

“That’s pretty solid evidence if you ask me!” Romelle grins at him. Keith rolls his eyes.

The day goes by in slow motion. Keith feels like he’s walking through fields of honey, heavily weighing each step down. He keeps thinking about earlier. Lance _did_ say he was cute. Well, he said his reaction was, which means he may have interpreted it wrong. But it wouldn’t make sense for Lance to come in everyday to try and become his friend. Lance became his friend after claiming himself to be. And the tea thing is still bothering him. Why doesn’t he drink his damn tea? In front of him especially? Keith would like some compliments, please.

He doesn’t see Lance until history class, as promised. Lance has taken a liking to the vacant seat next to Keith and passing notes rather than talking because of how much trouble they got in last time. This is another way they’ve gotten closer. Lance’s notes aren’t always simple conversation—in fact, they’re usually quick sketches of Keith’s profile or napping figure on a scrap of paper. Keith keeps them in a little drawer back home. Sometimes he’ll look at them before bed as a reminder of what to look forward to.

Today, no notes are passed. Lance has completely passed out, left cheek pressed against his arms resting on the desk. His lashes are long and elegantly curl over his freckled skin. He looks calm and peaceful, a black-and-white version of his creative and free spirit. Keith can’t help but stare with a giddy smile he fails to conceal. And though there’s a soft snore resonating from his throat, Keith thinks Lance has never looked as beautiful as he does now.

The pencil at the top of his desk rolls down to his hand. Keith switches his attention over to it. Under the yellow pencil is the blank piece of paper he should have been taking notes on. An idea sprouts in his head.

Keith is no artist. He’s got no sense of perspective or proportion, but he’s got the urge to gift Lance a sketch. A sketch he’s going to work ridiculously hard on for the remainder of the class. He does his best to remember the basic shapes and lines Lance draws to create his masterpiece. First, a circle and a vertical line cutting through the middle. Then, a horizontal line going through one-third of the circle. Keith starts adding details, constantly looking between his drawing and the sleeping boy beside him.

It takes a while. He’s erasing line after line so it looks somewhat like Lance. The one thing he doesn’t want to do is offend him. Lance’s sketches of him are just so good and stylized, so acutely _Lance,_ that there’s no way he could get Keith wrong. How long must it have taken him to become so talented? Keith feels like he’s trying to connect all the wrong puzzle pieces together.

Before he knows it, the rest of the students are already packing up their belongings. Keith hurriedly finishes his sketch of Lance, signs it, then sticks it underneath Lance’s hand. Keith bites the inside of his cheek, nervous about him seeing his awkward attempt to draw, and puts away his stuff to get his mind off it.

The bell chimes and Lance doesn’t wake, just keeps snoring through his possibly wonderful dream. Keith feels bad, but pokes him awake anyways. Lance slowly pries his eyes open, taking the light in one blink at a time, then sits up and yawns. Keith laughs.

“I’ll be waiting outside,” Keith says, then turns on his heel to head out the door. His steps are fast, fast enough to give himself a few seconds before Lance sees his drawing. Once outside in the hallway, he releases a breath of relief. He anxiously looks for Romelle, hoping she gets here early or just in time.

“Kano!” Lance yells from inside the class. Keith freezes, heart momentarily stopping, then consciously turns his head towards the door. He can hear his rushed movement. Chair hastily sliding out and scratching the floor. Steps loud and thrumming against the ground. A couple desks hit here and there. Within a second, Lance runs through the doorway and finds Keith, tense and timid. The piece of paper is in between his fingers.

It’s like the sun lights up Lance’s face. He quickly walks up to him and holds both of his hands. Keith feels all his blood rush to his face.

“Go out with me,” Lance says.

Keith’s eyes widen and for a split moment in time, he’s certain he is hearing things incorrectly. “What?” he whispers. It’s like history is repeating itself.

“Go out with me. On a date. Let me take you out, Kano, _please._ ” Lance’s open smile and little laugh makes Keith’s insides burst in flames. The alarm in his head begs him to answer, to say yes in every language and manner and word and form known to the universe.

“Did you like the drawing?” Keith asks instead. Somehow his mind blanks.

Lance cackles and lets go of Keith’s hands to run his fingers through his brown wavy locks. “Kano, I love it. I love your drawing. And I was gonna wait to ask you out until the weekend or something but you made me this and I literally can’t—I can’t _not_ ask you out. I can’t wait any longer, Kano.”

_I bet he likes you too._

Keith hates when Romelle is right.

“Yes.” Keith nods. His laugh is so erratic and spontaneous that he accidentally snorts. He hides his mouth behind his hand and looks at Lance through his lashes, still nodding.

Lance bounces on his heels and seems to be holding himself back, which Keith doesn’t want him to do. The smile on his face can’t possibly get any wider than it is. “Friday night. I’ll meet you at Little Leaf in the evening. Does that work for you?”

Keith puts his hand down. Lance’s eyes shift down to his smiling lips. “Anything works for me.”

Lance nods, eyes going back up to Keith’s own purple ones. “I can’t go with you today because my sister’s enrolling and I have to help her but I promise I’ll be there later today.”

Keith nods again. Lance holds up the drawing, as if to thank him for it, then runs off behind him. When the view before him clears, Romelle stands there hunched forward, backpack strap having fallen from her shoulder and barely hanging on the tips of her fingers, jaw dropped. Her pigtails slightly sway in front of her.

“How long have you been there?” Keith asks.

Romelle doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at him motionless.

“Whole time?”

“I’M TELLING EZUME!”

 

******

 

Keith sits on the bed in his small but homey sepia painted bedroom, watching Shiro scour through the cabinets of folded clothes to find a date outfit. He dramatically huffs, air making his bangs tickle against his forehead. Shiro glowers at him over his shoulder then returns to digging. To the left of him is an ever growing pile of clothes on the floor he unfolded but decided against. To the right of him, on Keith’s desk, are one long sleeve, collared olive tunic and a pair of chestnut trousers.

“I don’t know if I should trust you with this anymore,” Keith admits, leaning back on his hands. “Maybe I can get Allura?”

“Working,” Shiro mutters. He unfolds a charcoal short sleeve shirt, observes it, then throws it to a “no” pile. Keith doesn’t want to think about fixing it.

“But she’s my best friend.”

“I’m your brother.”

“Okay, then I can get Adam.”

“Working.”

“But he’s your boyfriend.”

“Why do you want either of them to help you?”

“They dress better than you.”

“Aha!” Shiro pulls out a forest green buttoned vest with tan linings. He carefully lays it over the collared shirt, then pairs the duo with the trousers. “Come look at this.”

Keith drags his feet over to his desk and stands beside his brother, ogling at the outfit in front of him. It’s very...Earth Kingdom-y. Shades of brown, green, tan—all colors he’s had to replace the reds and blacks and yellows of the Fire Nation with. The last time he dressed formally in Ba Sing Se was when he served the king four months ago. Besides that, he wore his school uniform and whatever he pulled out first from his drawers. As long as he doesn’t stand out.

But this isn’t so bad. He wants to get Allura and Adam’s opinion before he goes out though, just in case Shiro’s got it all wrong and Keith’s limited sense of fashion does him no justice. He quickly changes into the clothes then brushes the knots out of his hair, doing his best to make the strands fall perfectly in place. Looking at himself in the mirror, all dressed up to go on a date with a boy he—admittedly and officially—likes, he feels a mixed emotion of pride and absolute dread.

Pride because this is a step in the right direction. He’s going out with a boy who stops time with each laugh, slows and quickens Keith’s thoughts, who probably likes him _back._ Perhaps his luck is going to run out soon, but he could care less. This could lead to something more, something he never thought he’d have in his lifetime, and it makes his brain come up with idealistic visions of the future. Makes his brain show him dreams where they’re happy together, without a war outside the door of their home, like nothing else matters in the world and nothing can hurt them if they just hold each other’s hand and never let go.

Absolute dread because it’s all a lie. How is he going to keep doing this if he isn’t true to Lance? Keith’s from the Fire Nation, the place that obliterated his home before his eyes. He’s a firebender, has the gifts the same people who burned his sister’s leg have. Dangerous blood runs through his veins, enough to drive people away from him. Kano hides Keith behind the semblance of a blade. Lance has met Kano, befriended Kano, fell for _Kano._ Not Keith. He may never meet Keith.

“How did you do it?” Keith asks aloud, hoping his brother hears him. “Tell Adam about Shiro? Have that kind of trust?”

No response comes. Keith turns around to find his brother isn’t in his room, only the pile of unfolded clothes, his bed, and drawers accompanying him. He sighs and looks back at his reflection, styling his bangs to fall elegantly rustic over his forehead.

“Don’t worry about it,” he pep talks to himself. “It’s just Lance.”

He walks out of his room into an empty apartment, nothing but a candelabra on the dining table lighting the room in a warm gold glow. Out the door and down the stairs is a bustling Little Leaf about to see their prized tea maker dressed to the nines. Deep breaths, he reminds himself as he walks down. Deep breaths.

He enters from the side. Allura flies past him with an arrangement of drinks on her tray. Shiro is shouting over to Adam in the back, busying himself with making desserts, and no one notices Keith’s standing in the room until everyone at the table closest to him turns their head. They’re a group of six friends that have been coming to Little Leaf since the mint tea breakout and are well acquainted with him. One of them teasingly whistles at him as the rest of the table claps and chants his fake name. The entire shop turns to look at Keith and reacts similarly. Allura tucks her empty tray under her armpit and claps, smiling softly at him. Keith flushes red with embarrassment.

Little Leaf’s doorbell rings through the atmosphere. The customers are still cheering on Keith, but Allura looks toward the door and widely grins. Keith watches her head of white hair disappear into the crowd then reemerge with Lance by her side. He’s wearing an emerald tunic suit with cream flowers embroidered next to the brown buttons. It’s paired with slim black dress pants. Lance’s brown hair is slightly gelled back, dividing line to the left center of his face, and his clear skin glistens in the white light of the tea shop. He looks dashing and ethereal, like he belongs in the High Ring and shouldn’t be hanging around with a mere tea maker from the Middle Ring. Keith can’t possibly be this blessed, can’t possibly have been born during the worst war in world history and managed to find a diamond in the rough amongst the debris. _His_ diamond in the rough.

Keith walks up to him and the shop erupts in roars. Lance cutely flinches at the increase in noise, making Keith laugh.

“I thought you didn’t have a lot of friends,” Lance says when Keith is close enough to hear him. “What’s all this?”

“I make their favorite tea, Lance.” Taking the risky high road, Keith intertwines his hand with Lance’s. His hand is cold but comfortable, as if it was made to fit against his. “They’re my fans.”

The two walk out of Little Leaf to hollered whoops and enter the dimly lit streets of Ba Sing Se. Stars sparkle across the expansive night sky, radiant blue moon at the center of it all. Down the street, at the heart of the city, are masses of people looking for restaurants to eat at and places to be entertained. Cool spring air meets Keith’s warmed cheeks. The noise from the tea shop is distant now.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” Lance compliments, looking away from Keith. The corners of his lips vaguely rise.

Keith gently squeezes his hand which causes Lance to turn his way. “Thank you.” He leans a bit closer to him, smiling ear to ear. “You look beautiful too.”

Lance hums low and deep in his throat, a sound he’d love to hear more of if given the chance. “You’re awfully dangerous, Kano.”

“One of us has to keep things interesting.”

Lance lightly bumps Keith’s shoulder. “I think where I’m taking you is quite interesting. Do you trust me?”

Keith pretends to think about it. “Yeah, I trust you.”

They slowly stride through the city center. Musicians fiddle songs to a group of children, their parents dropping coins into a hat on the ground. People sit on the edge of the center’s humongous fountain, where streams of water shoot upward then curve down to pool in the basin. The surrounding stores are packed to the brim. Keith silently hopes Lance isn’t taking him somewhere here. It’s ridiculously expensive and catered to people in the High Ring.

He’s relieved when the sound fades away as they enter a residential street. Keith’s never liked the city center, filled with entitled people who come down in carriages and bathe in the spotlight. They hate the loud, loving environment of Little Leaf and despise the snobbish attitude Keith gives when he serves them.

“Do you like the city center?” Keith asks, breaking the serene silence.

“The fountain’s nice.” Lance sways their arms between them. Keith feels like a child on a sugar rush. “Performers are cool. That’s about it.”

“Me too.”

“The place is just around the corner.” He points up ahead to the next cross street. Lance briskly looks over Keith and deviously smiles at him. His brain takes a second to figure him out, then Lance abruptly starts running, laughter echoing against the surrounding buildings. Keith stumbles forward but the other pulls him up. “Careful!”

His chest constricts at the sight of Lance, golden light tracing his figure like an angel. Keith has to remind himself this is real. All real.

They stop in front of a shop with square windows, showing a few people inside reading or chatting with someone else. Keith narrows his eyes.

“Did you take me to a competing tea shop?” he asks.

Lance opens the front door for him and shakes his head. Skeptically, Keith walks inside, eyes never leaving Lance’s face. The shop is filled with white light that bounces off the walls. Dark wooden furniture adorns the place, each table meant for no more than two, unlike Little Leaf. Lance seems excited to be here, but Keith is nervous about it. But he trusts him.

Yeah. Trusts him.

They sit at a table and are given two menus by a waiter. Lance doesn’t even take a look at it. Keith looks at him over the edge of the menu.

“Know what you’re ordering?” Keith asks.

“I’ve been here before.”

Keith looks back at his menu. Listed are a variety of cappuccinos, frappuccinos, macchiatos and whatnot. He realizes this is no restaurant or tea shop.

This is a coffee shop.

Lance brought the tea maker to a coffee shop.

He wants to laugh. Really, _really_ wants to laugh. Lean back against his chair and kind of lose it. Coffee, he learned from Coran, is a popular drink in the south. Southern Water Tribe, Southern Air Temple—coffee for days. The rest of the world? Not so much. When he was little, Shiro dragged him around town looking for coffee grounds because he wanted to try it. Store owners scoffed in his face and told him he’d never find it. Tea was in abundance though. Tea became his passion.

“Hey, Lance,” Keith says, putting the menu down on the table and smiling. “I’m from the Northern Water Tribe.”

Lance smiles back at him. “Never had coffee before, huh?”

“I’ve never had coffee before. What should I get?”

“What are you in the mood for?”

Keith presses his lips together and thinks. He’s on a date with a guy he’s been crushing on for some time, a free-spirit who likes to draw and spend whatever time he has with Keith, on a spring night in the safest city in the world. This is his first date and he has no doubt that it’s going to be incredible, but there’s an inkling in his bones that has him on edge. Keith’s reminded he’s lying to Lance.

“Bittersweet,” he answers. “Scared about trying something new but a little excited too.”

Lance orders a caramel macchiato and a vanilla latte. Keith gazes at the extravagant machines behind the counter, whirring loudly and spurring out liquid. Tea is so much easier to deal with.

“Come here a lot?” Keith asks, resting his chin on the palm of his hand.

“Not as much as Little Leaf,” Lance admits. He places his arms on the table and leans forward. “My family likes it here. The owners are from the Southern Water Tribe.”

Keith smiles and channels a fun, sarcastic tone. “Drink the beverages here?”

Lance’s eyes go wide. His head drops forward and his shoulders shake as he silently laughs. Tan hands crawl over to his pale one, enveloping it between his palms. Beaming blue eyes gaze at him through long, curled lashes. Time freezes around them.

“I’ve got something to confess,” he says, thumb rubbing the side of Keith’s hand. “I, uh, don’t like tea.”

Keith twists his palm under his chin for his fingers to cover his mouth and nose. At last his curiosity is killed. Lance didn’t drink his tea because he simply didn’t _like_ tea—nothing more, nothing less. He already knows Romelle is going to poke fun at him after he tells her this, reminding him, again, that she was right. Again.

The helpless tug back of Lance’s lips and nervous shake in his eyes makes Keith want to tease him.

“Lance, I’m a tea maker,” he whispers in a serious manner. “I’ve made you a cup of tea every day for months. You didn’t drink from any of them.”

A desperate grab at his wrist leaves Keith’s chin without a resting place and has Lance blanketing both of his hands. Keith’s palms are pressed together between Lance’s. His eyebrows crease together, as if pleading. Keith can’t help but stare.

“I’m sorry,” Lance apologizes. Gradually, his expression softens. “It’s just all tea tastes disgusting.”

Keith puffs a breathless laugh and shakes his head. Lance laughs too and rests his forehead on their hands.

“You didn’t have to order tea if you don’t like it.”

“I needed a good reason to be there! I wanted to see you.”

“You hardly knew me.”

Lance leans closer to Keith. “I wanted to get to know you, Kano.” His voice is as gentle and sincere as a lullaby, make his thoughts pause and concentrate on his lips.

As if timing was not his forte, the waiter comes by and serves them their drinks. The heat of Lance’s hands dissipate when he lets go to give the plates sufficient space. Time unfreezes and everything returns to normal. And though the steam from his drink rises to his face and the coffee shop is toasty warm, Keith goes cold all over without a hand to hold.

Swirls of caramel float above the drink’s foamy white surface. On Lance’s drink, a cream heart is painted into the latte, light brown coffee riveting against the outline. Tea is a far less simpler concept—translucent colored liquid with a few pieces of herbs lounging at the bottom served in fine porcelain, but that’s the beauty of it. Coffee is decorative and outlandish, a concept recognized by few and mastered by fewer, making it a specialized treat to foreigners.

“What’s coffee supposed to taste like?” Keith asks as he experimentally blows on it.

“Like if water went bad, but in a good way,” Lance curtly explains.

“And if I don’t like it?”

Lance theatrically puts his chin on the palm of his hand and covers his mouth and nose with his fingers. He’s mimicking Keith’s earlier pose. “Then I, too, will pretend I’ve wasted my time on you.”

Holding the ceramic white mug in his hands, Keith brings the caramel macchiato to his lips and sips. Bittersweet liquid, as Keith asked for, sits on his tongue. He can taste the milky creme, similar to the one they use at Little Leaf, but hates the way it mixes with the strong, burnt flavor of coffee. Keith shakes his head and Lance groans.

“No, Kano,” he whines, drawing out the ‘o’ in his name. He leans back in his chair and childishly stomps his feet under the table. “How dare you do this to me?”

“It just doesn’t taste good!”

Lance slides his vanilla latte over to him and pouts. “Try mine.”

Keith lulls on his hesitation. It _could_ be that he only doesn’t like caramel macchiatos, but likes vanilla lattes. He doesn’t like ginger tea, but likes just about every other tea in existence, vanilla tea included. Keith takes a sip and is met with sweet, overwhelming vanilla. It takes him a second to swallow the insanely sugary drink. Reluctant to disappoint him, but every cell in his body refusing him to lie, Keith shakes his head once again.

“ _Kano._ ” Lance says his name breathless and agitated.

“It’s so sweet. Is all coffee this sweet?”

“How are we on this date?”

A string of harmless accusations leave Lance’s mouth, each one making Keith giggle, soaked with affection and wrung by admiration. Genuine happiness is hard to come by in times like these. The back of his brain reminds him of each memory plagued by the oncoming war, an alias concealing the blemishes of an identity he can’t erase, a success bonded by pure chance. Keith has come to believe he’s unworthy of all he’s received, because what good does a firebending boy tied to the Fire Nation have in the calmness of Ba Sing Se? Just a talent for making tea?

But then he’s in the vicinity of Lance and his prodding thoughts evaporate into thin air. Keith becomes dedicated to remembering every moment spent with him, framing it, and hanging it up on the walls inside his head. Some quotes stick with him—the ones that made his heart rupture like a volcano and time backpedal for a second—and some are lost to history. Yet each day spent with Lance means another chance to replace the words he’s forgotten. Each day spent with Lance means another journey in the place between the heavy words like and love. And though the lie he tells every waking moment magnetizes to his bones, Keith can’t help but collect and cling onto these fragments of his life.

Keith chews at his bottom lip, nervously rubbing his left upper arm. “When you first came to Little Leaf, I thought you had a grudge against me.” Lance raises a brow as he drinks his latte. “You came to my shop, ordered _my_ tea, didn’t drink it, and took up unnecessary space.” He clears his throat, averting his gaze from twinkling blue eyes. “So why did you come to Little Leaf if you don’t like tea?”

Lance shifts in his seat, staring hard at Keith and stretching his lips thin. “I thought you’d sell coffee too.”

Keith stops rubbing his arm.

“But you don’t,” he continues, now picking up Keith’s caramel macchiato and gulping it down. “However, I liked seeing you work. You’re so focused and your passion for what you do is so... _evident._ You’re enigmatic and it drew me in. There had to be more to you than just tea. And, obviously, it took a while, but—”

“But you didn’t stop trying,” Keith finishes for him. A tinge of guilt and appreciation runs through his veins. “Thank you. I’m sorry it took me so long to open up. I was partly nervous and partly angry every time you tried to interact with me.”

“Nervous? Why?”

“Lance you’re _beautiful._ ” Within milliseconds his skin goes hot. Voice winded and shaking, his nerves force him to ramble. “Even from behind the counter, I’d find myself staring at you. Hard not to. Handsome sapphire eyes, freckles like stars against the sky, a smile inviting and addicting.” Lance grins, thrill-inducing and unforgettable. “Heh, like that.”

A deep plum blush melds with Lance’s high cinnamon cheekbones. Keith did that. Messy, impulsive Keith who runs his mouth when he’s nervous made the most beautiful man on earth blush. Lance hides behind his hands then tilts his head back, delightfully sighing.

“I hate to break it to you,” Lance starts, eyes darting to view Keith at such an odd angle, “but you’re far more beautiful. Calm warmth locked behind amethyst eyes, midnight captured in the strands of your hair, a smile directed at few but always gifted to me.”

Keith has never been one to fish for compliments. When you’re the mastermind behind a successful tea shop, compliments are wrapped up nicely and presented with a bow on top. Of course he appreciates them all, but there’s a sharp difference between being complimented on your work and being complimented about yourself. Lance has the god-like power to strike him with poetic phrases and shock his nerves awake. It’s absolutely gratifying, like switching the gravity off in his world and letting him roam in complete bliss.

However, the rivalrous edge to his words, the smart-mouthed disposition and pattern of his siren voice proves Lance has turned this into a competition he wants to be the winner of.

“Unfortunately, I’m no romantic, but you sure are. You’ve got talent and use it to swoon me. It works every time and as unfair as it is, I don’t think it’s a game I want to win.”

“Oh? But I don’t have a laugh as sweet as honey, a laugh that seeps into every crevice it comes across and buries itself there.”

“And I will never have a sharp and timely sense of humor but love being the victim to yours.”

“Alas, my talents will never add up to the grandeur yours have created, but I will look on with pride.”

Keith pauses. “What?”

Again, with awful timing, the waiter collects their empty mugs and heads off. Lance stares at his folded hands on the table. Long but elegant, nails finely trimmed and clean, no doubt that of a musician. Keith reaches over and places his hand on top of them. Lance snaps his head up.

“Lance, you’re extremely talented,” he informs, mindlessly counting the speckles in his eyes. “I’ve seen you do everything. Draw still lifes, ace tests back to back, win sport games, play the liuqin so professionally it shut the whole class up.”

Lance smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It doesn’t mean I’m the best.”

“No one has to be the best to be good at something.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Keith’s heart sinks to the depths. Lightly, he squeezes Lance’s hand to comfort him. “I’m going to support you in whatever you decide to focus your passions on. It’s not meant to be a competition. Trust me, you’re fantastic at everything you put your mind to. Don’t compare two different things. We’re at the top together.”

And those words should definitely be followed by something more profound, something that solidifies them as _something_ to be at the top. Partners, perhaps. Best friends. Any label that would mean they’re at the top together, no matter what the circumstances.

Nonetheless, Lance’s smile finally reaches his eyes and Keith’s heart returns to normal. Moments like these make him take a confident step towards love.

“Thank you,” he whispers into the space between them.

They sit in silence for a bit, Keith idly smoothing the warm skin of Lance’s hand.

“I really like you,” Lance says, watching Keith’s fingers move along him. “We haven’t known each other that long, but I really do like you. I make it a point to see you everyday because it feels like I have to, like that’s the only time I’ll have the opportunity for you to make my day. And I talk a lot, and maybe I say some stupid things here and there, but you always listen and have the right words to say. It’s so hard to find someone like that. Someone like you. And I never knew I needed it until I met you.” He takes a look at Keith. “I want us to be something more. _Together._ ”

It takes a few seconds for Keith to process the words, then a few extra ones to believe them. Because when has anyone needed Keith? No one needs his inapt attitude, his uncontrolled anger, his cold presence. These are things he needs to work on before he can put himself out into the world.

Yet Lance is here, here _every day,_ and still feels this way. The Fire Nation could break through the wall and Keith’s positive he’d find Lance waiting to escape with him.

“Me too.” Keith’s voice cracks at the confession, but he musters on. “I really like you. I find myself thinking about you when I should be focused on something else and I want to be around you every chance I get. But I don’t—I _can’t_ be with you. Not yet. There’s some...problems that need to be fixed before you can call me yours. I hope that’s okay with you.”

His identity is what’s holding him back. He wants to tell him but needs time to find the words.

“I’ll wait for you, Kano.”

What pains Keith the most is how Lance says his name—Kano. He’s heard every person who walks into Little Leaf say it. He’s read it in every newspaper. He’s written it more times than he’s ever written his real name. But the way Lance says it is like it fills the ocean with life. It holds the most precious valuables, calls itself home to those who need it, keeps him alive and breathing where others can’t survive. Kano is the water he bends.

Not Keith. Keith is the fire he puts out in fear. Keith is Sozin’s comet skimming the surface and giving the enemy limitless power. He fears that, if he ever reveals himself, Lance will never say Keith the way he says Kano, like it’s the sun that brightens the earth and keeps the planets in place. That everything will change and this rhythm they’ve created—that Keith finds himself needing rather than wanting—will disappear and have been for nothing.

 

******

 

It’s been two months of Keith and Lance dancing around one another and two months of Romelle narrowly missing their heads from a rock she launched out of the ground to practice for her upcoming tournament. Two months of Keith’s heart beating in fear of Lance losing interest and dying by Romelle’s earthbending.

Because she’s almost killed them multiple times, she gave her two free tickets to Keith and Lance as a way of apologizing. It’s possibly the best gift he’s gotten in his life. Finding tickets to the underground earthbending tournaments is like finding a relic from a past Avatar. Romelle hardly ever manages to get two tickets, so Keith has only been to a tournament twice. Whenever she scores a solo ticket, he encourages her to go instead of him. Romelle competing makes it a bonus, and going with Lance—“It’s a date!” he had claimed—makes it all the better.

The entrance to the arena is behind a mountain in the city. A yellow light indicates where it is, but only a few people may enter at a time so that suspicion stays low. Keith and Lance walk side by side, hands brushing but never holding in crowded areas like this. Hand holding is reserved for empty places. Lance crosses his pinky with Keith’s though, which he’s made habit when there’s too many people around. It always makes his chest tighten with care. It’s the minimal version of holding hands. Sometimes its meaning carries more weight.

In the middle of the arena stands a large rectangular platform. The Earth Kingdom symbol decorates the ridges and is also in the center of the earthy playing field. Long staircases at the corners lead down to the dirt moat around it. Eery yellow-green light shines from above. Lines of basalt benches surround the arena, the areas directly behind the shortest sides of the platform empty.

“Why do you think it’s empty?” Lance asks, pointing at the seats.

Right then, a large boulder zooms pass their bodies and smashes against the benches. Pebbles roll down to their feet.

“That’s why,” Keith answers.

Down in the crevice, Keith spots Romelle’s silky blonde hair. She’s stretching her limbs, alone, away from the group of earthbenders to her right that are talking. Her hands are wrapped in lime green bandages, which greatly contrasts the moss colored tank top she’s wearing and baggy chestnut pants.

“Go Romelle!” Lance shouts beside him, hand cupping around his lips to project his voice. Romelle looks up and waves at them. They wave back, Lance more ecstatically than Keith, then look for a place to sit.

“Oh! My friends are here.” Lance quirks up and scans the audience. “I told them to save us seats.”

“Hunk and Pidge?”

“Yup.”

Keith has met Hunk and Pidge twice. The first time was when they came to Little Leaf with Lance. Luckily, they appreciate the fine taste of tea over the drug-like one of coffee since Hunk and Pidge hail from the Northern Water Tribe and Omashu, respectively. The second time was when Lance was absent from school and the two came looking for Keith thinking he had done something wrong when, in reality, Lance was just taking care of his grandma at home. They’re nice people if Keith erases the passive aggressive interrogation they performed on him from his mind. Both of them are no doubt Lance’s best friends; the amount of inside jokes between the three is indecipherable.

Eventually Lance finds his friends seated in the center of the audience to the right, on the long side of the platform. Both are still in their school uniforms and they’ve held two seats in front of them with their school backpacks. Lance and Keith hastily walk down the row, Lance saying sorry to each person they have to cross and Keith barely lifting the corners of his mouth as means of saying thanks.

“Why are you in your uniforms?” Lance asks once they get to their seat.

“We never went back home,” Hunk replies.

“Why are _you_ dressed like that?” Pidge asks, pointing at Lance’s outfit.

Keith’s outfit is perfectly mundane—a loose, sage long sleeve shirt that buttons up the middle, collar button popped open, tucked into straight mahogany pants. Lance, however, doesn’t wear a single piece of clothes that resembles the Earth Kingdom. Today, he came dressed in Southern Water Tribe attire. A sleeveless navy shirt with thick sky blue trims that cross over his chest, cinched by a brown leather belt, and light gray joggers. Keith was stunned when he came by to pick him up. Majority of refugees don’t walk around Ba Sing Se wearing their traditional clothes, but Lance always breaks the status quo. He looks dashing and confident in the attire. Just when Keith believed the apple of his eyes couldn’t be more beautiful, he proves him wrong.

“We haven’t washed the clothes in a while,” Lance lies to his friends. Earlier, he told Keith he wanted to dress for the occasion. Keith smiles.

“Hey Kano,” Hunk says, tone happy. “How’d you get free tickets?”

“Friend is competing,” he says.

“Goals,” Pidge says under her breath.

Once Keith and Lance are seated, Lance intertwines all his fingers with Keith and grins at him. Even in the grim green light, Keith has never wanted to kiss him more.

A want which he’s found himself abstaining from more and more each day. Ever since their first date, when Keith told Lance himself they couldn’t be together just yet, the urge to pull him close and kiss him senseless increases with every breath he takes. The path between where he stands and the word like is longer than the one between him and love now. But he has to hold himself back. This is _his_ decision after all. Can’t go diving in head first when he’s still telling Lance a lie and everything between them shifts downward.

Xin Fu, tournament host and referee, rises from the ground wearing an open green vest and olive pantaloons. The crowd belches at the top of their lungs. Lance hoots next to him. Keith claps and looks on. He’s nervous for Romelle.

“Welcome to Earth Rumble Four!” Xin Fu announces. “The rules are easy to follow. Knock your competitor out of the ring with only earthbending and you move onto the next round. Today, we welcome a batch of new earthbenders looking for some excitement! Six lucky people have been chosen to compete against each other to make it into the elite leaguers. They will go through preliminary rounds first, then whoever wins will challenge The Boulder!”

Keith vaguely remembers Romelle talking about The Boulder in the past. If he’s correct, The Boulder is more of an attacker. Using his earthbending, he boastfully performs big frontal attacks that knocks his competitors out of the arena, but uses little strategy. He seems like someone Romelle would have confidence in beating.

“Let us begin first with Warlord Ranveig!”

A tall, wide-built man with pale skin and geometric tattoos all over his muscled arms and torso breaks through the surface of the platform. He’s shirtless and has on torn shorts that look too tight around his thighs, even from this distance. Warlord Ranveig seems like he belongs with the elite leaguers. The majority of the crowd cheers him on.

“Did Romelle tell you her stage name?” Lance asks him close to his ear. Keith shakes his head.

“And against Warlord Ranveig,” Xin Fu yells, pointing to the far right corner of the field, “is The Chameleon!”

The Chameleon walks up the steps and is greeted with boos. She’s casted in shadows, but her signature pigtails make it obvious to anyone who knows her that it’s Romelle. Once the light hits her, Keith sees that the ends of her hair are styled into a swirl like a chameleon’s tail and the crown of her hair stands up a little higher in the middle. Two bright teal crests are painted on her cheekbones.

“That’s her!” Lance cheers, bouncing up and down in his seat. “GO CHAMELEON!”

“Oh no,” Keith softly says. Warlord Ranveig looks like a monster compared to Romelle’s tiny stature.

“Kano, she’s the best earthbender we know.” Lance sticks his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Pidge. “She’d bury this one alive with a single trip over a rock. Have some faith.”

Xin Fu leaves the platform and blows the horn. The competition begins.

Romelle rubs her hands together then jumps. A slab of rock forms under her feet and large, circular pieces of rock hold it up. She leans forward, making the rocks below wheel her in the direction she desires. Warlord Ranveig loudly chuckles.

“I’m not gonna let a little girl beat me!” he jeers. Bending down, his hand digs into the earth. He swings his arm forward. A hoard of rocks come from out of the ground and are thrown in the direction of Romelle. She swiftly maneuvers around them. Her palms catch stray pieces and she redirects them at Warlord Ranveig.

Too busy dodging rocks, he doesn’t see Romelle hop off her board and create a barricade around her. Behind it, she kicks the surface. Several rocks jut out from below. One pops out from under Warlord Ranveig’s foot and he goes soaring out of the arena.

For a split second, the audience is quiet, then roars in delight. Keith’s jaw drops. Lance stands up and jumps, raising a fist and chanting, “Chameleon! Chameleon!”

Romelle—boisterous, talkative, apple tea-loving Romelle—just knocked out the fiercest looking earthbender Keith has ever seen at a tournament with a calm and collected face. Not a single word was said. Romelle, who has gotten far better at earthbending in the past two months, but still slips up often, has just won the first preliminary round.

Keith only makes good friends.

Romelle bows down at the crowd. She’s doing her best to present herself differently and all he can say is she’s doing a superb job at acting. Keith turns around to look at Hunk and Pidge, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

“Don’t like her?” Keith asks.

“We were rooting for Warlord Ranveig,” Hunk broodily answers.

Keith smirks. “She’s my friend.”

Lance sits back down and holds Keith’s hand again. The next opponent is someone by the name of White Lion. He has a head of white hair which puffs out like a mane and wears a white gown. Lean but strong and about Romelle’s size.

White Lion, much like The Chameleon, is more focused on defense. Both are constantly blocking each other’s moves. The longer they fight, the more anxious the crowd gets. Lance has a death grip on Keith’s hand because he’s so nervous. Yet again, Romelle kicks at the surface and White Lion flies out the platform, landing hard against the empty benches.

The audience is much more engaged in the next fight against Emperor Zarkon. Romelle had told him that this was the opponent she was most afraid of because of his unconventional earthbending style. She’s tried figuring it out, but can never decipher his next move.

This is the fight Keith is looking forward to the most.

Emperor Zarkon’s first move is simple: a series of jump circle kicks. With each jump, a cluster of boulders rise from the ground, and he kicks them towards Romelle. It’s a move Keith’s never seen done in earthbending but seems so familiar to him. He frames two walls adjacent to him, then pushes them forward. The wall crumbles to pebbles but still flies toward Romelle at top speeds. Romelle digs herself under the ground to avoid the rocks.

“That’s not earthbending,” Lance says, zoned in on the fight. “I mean, it’s earthbending, but the style isn’t.”

“It’s firebending,” Keith reveals, maybe with too much awe in his voice. It is so tied to firebending, he feels like he’s having an out-of-body experience. Lance side eyes him mysteriously. “Cool, right?”

“Weird. From who could he have learned firebending moves from in Ba Sing Se?”

“A wall doesn’t do anything to keep people out, Lance.”

Emperor Zarkon raises a triangular monolith from the ground and punches at it, each hit producing a sharp rock plate aimed at Romelle. Stealthily, she pinches the plates between her thumb and index finger, then flings it back at him. Zarkon narrowly misses them.

They go back and forth for what seems like forever. Keith’s leg bounces as he watches. He shouldn’t be fascinated by Emperor Zarkon—he’s trying to kick his best friend out of the arena—but he can’t help it. The firebending techniques make him long to get back into practicing. Keith hasn’t firebended, _real_ firebending, in almost a year. Warming his cup of tea or lighting the candelabra in his home isn’t enough.

“You’re too nervous,” Lance warns him. Keith tries to stop his leg from shaking but fails. “She’ll be fine. I’m gonna go buy some snacks. Come with?”

As much as Keith wants to watch the battle go down, he also likes being alone with Lance. Besides, perhaps he is too nervous, and a little walk won’t do him any harm. They make their way past the people in their row and down the steps. To the left, a concession shop sells popcorn, drinks, and gummy candies. Though the majority of people are in the stands and they’re alone down here, Lance lets go of Keith’s hand and interlocks their pinkies instead.

“What kind of popcorn do you have?” Lance asks the worker.

Keith keeps his eyes on the fight, observing each move Emperor Zarkon makes against Romelle. The air he breathes out of his nostrils drills into the ground below, dust and rocks sputtering in random directions. Romelle shields herself with a coat of boulders.

Suddenly, a man steps in front of him and blocks the view. His brown hair ties into a ponytail and his sideburns are thick, going down to his bearded jaw that ends at a point on his chin. He wears a tan shirt with orange trims and looks Keith up and down.

“Got any money on you?” his husky voice asks, shit-eating grin splitting his lips.

In his peripheral, Keith sees a glint of silver by his hand. He immediately releases his hold on Lance and reaches for the blade in his back pocket. Keith carries it with him at all times since he can’t protect himself with firebending.

“Wish I did,” Keith says, then swings his needle-pointed blade at him.

The perpetrator blocks the attack with his own blade, this one spear-pointed, then twists his wrist down to try and stab at Keith’s stomach. Keith takes a step back and somewhere, deafened but piercing, his name is being screamed. Still, he lunges at the man looking for money.

The blade barely misses the perp’s torso, slicing a hole into his shirt instead. In retaliation, the spear-pointed blade comes down on Keith’s extended arm. Keith rapidly jerks his arm away. He raises his leg and kicks the hilt of the man’s blade out of his hand. The weapon clatters to the ground. Keith wastes no time and presses the edge of his blade to the stranger’s neck. He stares icicles into his brown eyes, tilting his head to the left. The perp is wide-eyed and terrified, breath jagged against Keith’s skin.

“ _Kano!_ ”

Keith looks back to find Lance, concern laced across his face, with his palm open and stretched toward him. A wooden vial, lid popped off, is in his other hand. Keith’s eyes dart down to the perpetrator’s hands, ready to grab at Keith but frozen over. Just to taunt him, Keith lightly presses his blade against his neck again, then sashes it away in his back pocket. Keith kicks the knife into the crevice and knocks him off his feet, body slamming against the concrete floor.

“Invest in some lessons,” Keith tells him, then walks back to Lance.

Lance puts the vial away in between his belt and shirt, then grasps Keith’s hand and pulls him close. “Are you nuts?”

“He had a knife.”

“Yeah, so do _you,_ ” Lance reasons. “Why do you have a knife?”

“I have to protect myself somehow.” Keith pokes at the vial. “Can’t waterbend myself out of situations.”

“So you’re just gonna attack him?”

He blinks questioningly. “Yeah.”

Lance’s concern evaporates and is replaced by a tiny laugh. Keith smiles and nudges him.

_You can’t kiss him,_ he thinks. _You don’t deserve to._

“Do you, uh, still want this popcorn?” the kid running the concession stand asks. The popcorn  bucket he holds shakes in his hands.

“Yes, I already paid for it,” Lance says, taking the popcorn from him. He nods his head towards the man on the floor. “Can you get security on this guy? Tried robbing this hothead here.”

Keith glares at him as Lance releases his hand and interlocks their pinkies again. They walk back to their seats. Romelle is still fighting Emperor Zarkon, but right as they cross the lines of bodies to get back, the crowd starts wildly cheering. Both get back to their seats faster, constantly looking over their shoulders to the fight. Everyone is standing. Keith grabs a handful of Lance’s popcorn and eats, intently watching his best friend.

In a flash, Romelle recognizes the mountain of loose rocks to her side and smirks. She sets her stance up and roundhouse kicks at the mound in an ankle sweep. All of the rocks travel in a string and blast at Emperor Zarkon, sending him out the arena and into the the walls of the crevice.

The audience explodes. Lance jumps, popcorn falling out of the bucket, and yells with everyone else. Keith raises his arms over his head and claps. Romelle aborts her mysterious, sheltered persona and starts embarrassingly dancing in the middle of the platform. Fans start chanting her name, even Hunk and Pidge. Keith beams.

Klaizap, a short boy that looks a few years younger than Romelle, hesitantly joins her on the platform. The horn blows and he immediately surrenders, raising his arms by his side. Romelle sighs, stomps, and gently sends the young boy out of the arena. The audience laughs.

Quartermaster Janka is the final opponent of The Chameleon. Over his eyes is a mechanical shield, left eye covered by three yellow lights and right covered by one red light. He has a big build, tight white shirt ripping at the seams and baggy black pants hiding his legs. Right when the horn blows, Quartermaster Janka turns the ground below Romelle’s feet into sand and sinks her down to her waist. Thinking fast, Romelle solidifies the sand and pounds her fists against the surface, cracking the floor all the way to his feet, then moving her hands away from each other to widen the crack. Janka involuntary does the splits and screams at the top of his lungs. Romelle flicks her wrist up and sends him out the platform.

The crowd seems to break the sound barrier. Hats are thrown into the air. Romelle’s stage name is once again chanted as she pulls herself out of the ground and lands on her back, kicking her feet up into the air and hollering.

“She’s amazing,” Keith gasps. He can’t believe he ever doubted her. Romelle’s never had any professional training or taken lessons, but she’s always had wit and strategy, and that’s why she’s here. That’s why she made it through the tryouts and got to the arena. Now she’s in Earth Rumble IV, having won the preliminary rounds undefeated and moving on to compete against the people she’s looked up to for years.

“If I didn’t know you were into me, I’d be worried,” Lance jokes, making Keith roll his eyes but his heart flutter.

“Give it up for The Chameleon!” Xin Fu shouts, helping Romelle up to her feet and giving her a pat on the back. “She stands undefeated in these preliminary rounds. Now, she faces the professionals. First up, The Boulder!”

“The Boulder is happy to face this little lady!” a man announces from the referee stand. The Boulder stands there with his hands at his waist. He jumps down to the playing field, shaking the whole place, and points at Romelle. “You’re going down, reptile!”

Xin Fu returns to his post and blows the horn excitedly. Apprehensive, Keith tightly holds onto Lance’s hand and steals another handful of popcorn. Romelle takes a deep breath and relaxes. She’s battling someone she’s watched for years, studied his moves and style until she’d be copying them on her own. It’s an advantage.

Romelle moves her hands in a wave-like motion, forcing the earth to move in ripples toward the Boulder. He keeps his balance and summons—fittingly—a boulder from behind him, then launches it at her. She’s able to put a wall up before it touches her, but it’s awfully close. The Boulder confidently walks up to her, pulling a slab of rock twice the size of his body along the way, and holds it in both hands. Romelle stays hidden behind her wall until it’s too late. The second she brings the wall down, The Boulder bats her out of the platform with his rock. Her back crashes down to the crevice ground.

The audience is silent for a second, then begins chanting, “The Boulder! The Boulder!”

Keith pushes through the people blocking him without second guess, leaving Lance behind to check up on Romelle. No sorries, no friendly smiles, none of that before he gets to his friend. He’s sprinting down the stairs before he knows it, running to the place she fell.

“Kano!” Lance yells behind him. “Kano, wait up!”

Keith looks over the edge and into the crevice to find Romelle. She’s already up and dusting herself.

“Romelle!” he shouts down. She doesn’t look up. “Chameleon!”

Then she looks up at Keith and waves, wide grin over taking her expression. “Kano!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes! Of course! That was so much fun!”

“Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine! Amazing even! I won preliminaries!” She breaks out into dancing again, no rhythm but plenty of feeling being shown. “I’ll meet you outside in a second! I have to get my stuff!”

Romelle runs off before Lance gets to say any words to her.

“Damn it,” he grunts. This time, Keith interlocks their pinkies together, taking Lance by surprise. “Oh?”

“She’ll meet us outside. Do you want to go?”

Lance looks at the platform, where The Boulder throws cheesy taunts at his next opponent. “Yeah, there’s no point anymore.”

The two take their sweet time getting to the exit, Lance’s eyes glued to the battle and Keith’s noticing the way the light moves over Lance’s skin, hypnotizing and wonderous. If the world worked in his favor, he’d be able to see this for the rest of his life, next to him in bed as the moonlight dances over the stars on his skin.

_If._

The world, clearly, does not.

The night is humid and dry, wind sticking to Keith’s skin like leeches and thinning his hair.

“Romelle means a lot to you, huh?” Lance asks out of nowhere. His icy fingers interlock with the rest of Keith’s.

“Yeah, she’s my friend,” he replies. It seems obvious. “Why do you ask?”

“The way you care for her, the worry written all over your face—it’s so clear and I love it. I love how protective you are. Enough to let her go and do what she loves, even though it’s dangerous.” Lance’s voice lowers to a whisper. “I want you to be like that with me.”

If the Fire Nation arrested him now, Keith would surely burn them again just to escape and give everything he has to offer to Lance. He desperately wants to be with him, shower him in love and attention and support him the way he _should._ The way a lover does, with every ounce of their body. Keith doesn’t have to hold back. It’s his choice who he gets to tell his secret to. Telling Lance shouldn’t be so nerve-racking, but more than anything, he doesn’t want to mess this up. He’s still digging up the words to say, the places to be, and the possible reactions to it all.

“I am like that with you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“ _Lance,_ ” Keith sighs, meaning to be soft but coming out as almost hungry and lost.

A cold hand meets his cold left cheek. Lance’s thumb caresses the skin on his cheekbone, soft and ghosting. Keith finds himself leaning into it, begging for the touch and warmth it creates. Never did he believe he’d want Lance’s hand anywhere but in his, but maybe here is just as good. Just as meaningful and comfortable.

“I know, not yet.” A frown disguised as a smile plays on Lance’s lips. However, his beady ocean eyes hold hope and trust. “But soon, right?”

And, hell, he wants to kiss him.

“Of course.”

 

******

 

Keith hasn’t been in Ba Sing Se long enough to make enemies. Competing tea shops, maybe, but he doesn’t interact with them enough to call them his enemy. In school, he mostly talks to Romelle, Lance, and sometimes Pidge and Hunk.

So he’s always wondered why Rolo has it out for him.

Rolo is in all of his classes. Sometimes he sits near Keith, especially during tests, and tries to peek at his paper. Keith lets him, but he usually writes down the wrong answer then changes it to the right one before he turns his paper in. Rolo then gets a lower grade than Keith, despite copying him. That is a valid reason to hate him.

What bewilders Keith is that Rolo will still come in to Little Leaf and drink his tea. He knows Keith is the one making it—it’s no secret—but he comes in and orders his famous mint tea anyways. Is he waiting for Keith to poison him or something? Mess up his order? Ruin his reputation somehow?

He wonders.

For almost two weeks, Rolo has been storming up a weather around Keith, eyes striking lightning every time they fall on him. It’s been keeping Keith out of focus and on edge ever since. He’s never acted like this before, like he’s waiting for Keith to slip up and Rolo can finally prove his unknown point. Keith likes to stay out of people’s way, so to have Rolo constantly staring at him no matter where he hides is bothersome and annoying.

“I saw you at Earth Rumble Four,” Rolo says to him in the middle of the courtyard. He stands close to Keith, white bangs almost touching his black ones. The green school uniform isn’t tucked in like it should be and the buttons are all done wrong. Keith takes a step back, not liking the proximity of this at all.

It’s a sunny afternoon and school has just ended. Everyone’s heading back home. Romelle had a doctor’s appointment to attend because of her back pain, so she left early. Keith is waiting for Lance, who is currently making up a test he missed a while ago.

“Okay,” Keith says. “And you’ve been keeping your eyes on me ever since, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah. You were acting odd.”

Did he see the knife fight? Keith was sure they were too far from the crowd for anyone but the guy at the concession stand to see that. “How so?”

“I saw the way you looked at Emperor Zarkon.” Rolo crosses his arms and smirks. “Like you knew his every move.”

“Were you stalking me?” Keith asks. Now he knows Rolo was watching him rather than the tournament and it doesn’t sit well with him. Keith was with Lance. There was no reason to be looking at them.

“Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t looking at your boyfriend,” he goads, smugly smiling at the final word.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Just the word makes his thoughts hazy. They’re not dating. Even though they’ve been on several dates. Keith doesn’t have to specify that, but he doesn’t want gossip running around. He doesn’t want Rolo talking about Lance either.

“Is it because he doesn’t know you’re a firebender? That you’re from the Fire Nation?”

It’s as if the world blacks out. Another solar eclipse falls over and everything surrounding him is the sun’s fiery rays. The four syllables echo in the confines of his skull, reverberating between the bones and gaining volume. This is the first time he’s been accused of being a firebender, of being from the Fire Nation. He’s been so careful, so _determined_ not to out himself like this, and the person he never considered his enemy has figured him out and taken the title.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith states, voice surprisingly steady. Even if Rolo’s right about him, he has to do everything in his power to convince him otherwise.

“I saw you!” Rolo yells, pushing Keith by his shoulders and making him stumble back. There’s rage in his brown eyes and he grits his teeth, ready for a fight. People start gathering around the two, hoping to witness something violent. “No one else knows a firebender’s moves like a _firebender!_ ”

“You’re not making any sense, Rolo.” Keith attempts to reason peacefully, even though his hands ball into fists at his sides. “That would make Emperor Zarkon a firebender.”

“Emperor Zarkon escaped a Fire Nation prison after being locked up for five years! He studied the guards and prisoners! We all know your story, Kano. Your _fake_ story, where you’re an innocent nonbender from the Northern Water Tribe who makes tea to pass the time.” Rolo points at Keith and looks to the audience. “He’s lying to all of us! He’s _Fire Nation._ ”

Murmurs ring through the crowd, skeptically looking at Keith and backing away from him. Keith breathes in and out, in and out and warm and fiery and dangerously angry. Part of being a firebender is having little to no control over your anger. If he were back at home, still taking his lessons, maybe he could have mastered it by now. But he hasn’t. He had to leave because his anger and protectiveness got the best of him, and now there’s bound to be a bounty reward for his head.

Therefore, Keith doesn’t realize he threw the first punch until he’s throwing the second one right after. Rolo wobbles back and trips, landing on his butt. His bottom lip is split and bleeding down his chin.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part that’s thinking logically but Keith has decided to ignore, is screeching at him to stop. If he continues, he runs the risk of accidentally firebending and burning Rolo, which will consequently get him and Shiro turned into the authorities and sold to the Fire Nation. Keith runs the risk of never seeing Lance again, of disappointing the one person he’s come to care for more than anyone in his life, and turning everything they have to dust.

But actions speak louder than words and thoughts and logic. Keith pins Rolo down with his knees and decks him again. Rolo’s hands come scrambling forward to clasp onto Keith’s neck. Another punch to his cheek stops him. Instead, Rolo gathers the strength to push Keith to the side and switches their positions. The first punch to Keith’s cheekbone aches and swells. His vision clouds over, but he can still decipher the fist coming down to meet his face again.

As each punch meets his skin, Keith tires and the pain numbs. He has the energy to fight back, but reason notifies him that if he does, flames will soar out his fists. Keith is too angry. The consequences are too dire.

In the distance, someone is telling them to break it up. Keith stays still. The weight of Rolo is forced off Keith’s fatigued body and is it his left eye? He thinks his left eye is closing up, or maybe he’s going blind. And Rolo won’t stop screaming over and over that Keith’s a fraud, that Keith’s one of _them._

_He’s Fire Nation._

Keith’s luck is running out.

“Kano!” It’s Lance, seemingly worried, a crack in his voice when he says Keith’s name.

Keith can make out colors above him—brown, tan, a little bit of blue, green that’s probably from the school uniform. Colors he mostly associates with Lance. A finger carefully presses against the wound around his eye and Keith hisses, trying to push away whoever is touching him.

“It’s me, Kano,” Lance breaks through the haze. Soft hands envelope Keith’s battered and sore ones. Knowing it’s Lance that’s here with him makes his rigid body relax.

“Lance,” Keith chokes, rough and coarse like sandpaper, drying his throat out. He wishes he could see him, but everything’s clouded.

“I’m gonna help you up, okay?”

Keith’s hands fall to the side. Lance puts his hand against his shoulder blade and pushes him up into a sitting position. Keith’s murky world spins on its axis and he holds his head in his hand, as if that will slow it down. Lance lifts him into a standing position and throws Keith’s arm over his shoulders. Holding him up by the waist, Lance leads him out of the school.

“Lance, I can’t see where I’m going,” Keith slurs his words together.

“That’s okay, I’m here,” he assures, pulling him closer. “As long as you’re walking.”

“How was your test?”

“Fine. Don’t worry about it. We have to get you home.”

“Home.” Keith scoffs, which makes his throat hurt more. He instantly regrets it. “I’m going to be such a disappointment.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Lance tries to sound serious, but Keith’s ears are perfectly fine and he hears the remnants of a light laugh. “Ezume might be mad.”

“I’ve done worse.” He thinks of the soldiers he burned over a year ago.

The walk home is longer than usual. Pedestrians ask Lance if they should call for help, but he claims Keith is fine. Little Leaf’s noisy atmosphere becomes apparent. When Lance pushes the doors open, the place falls silent. Keith barely registers a figure behind the counter running towards him.

“What happened?”

Shiro. Distressed for now.

“Fight,” Lance answers quickly.

Shiro helps Lance take Keith up the stairs to their apartment. His feet drag over the floor, overworked and tired from all the walking. He’s unaware of where he is until his back hits his springy bed. Keith snuggles into the pillow, sticking one hand under it to keep warm.

“I’ll get ice,” Lance says. Keith hears his footsteps leave the room and he groans.

“Keith, what the _fuck_ happened?” Shiro anxiously asks, moving his hair away from his face.

“Rolo said I was a firebender,” he says. He points at his throat. “Sore throat. Licorice tea please.”

Shiro sighs. Keith closes his eyes, too drained to keep them open. A blanket is laid over him and he smiles. The door opens, presumably Lance, then shuts behind him.

“Can you take care of him?” Shiro asks him. “I have to make him tea and run the shop.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”

Shiro leaves his bedroom. It’s just him and Lance now, and though he’s beat and restless, his bloods runs faster in his veins. Lance sits on the edge of the bed and puts the ice pack on his bruised eye. Keith keens at the touch.

“I know,” he whispers, “but you need it.”

Keith’s free hand pats around the bed, looking for Lance’s hand. In a few seconds, he finds it and holds it like a lifeline. “Thank you,” he faintly says.

Then, he’s out.

He doesn’t dream. All he feels is the cold press against his eye. It’s agitates him. Ice doesn’t do well on firebenders. He feels stuck in the winter mountains, the ones where yetis roam and travelers die of frostbite. Yet, it soothes him, and thoughtlessly believes it’s because of Lance. Lance, from the Southern Water Tribe, freezing the hands of the man who tried to rob him. Lance who isn’t as icy and cold as Keith, but fiery and hot.

Softly, Keith’s shaken awake. This time, when he opens his eyes, he’s able to see far more clearer. The first person he sees is Lance, eyes searching for a sign of life. When Keith smiles at him, he gushes and smiles back, squeezing his hand he’s still holding. He doesn’t realize the ice pack isn’t on his left eye until he sees it in Lance’s hand.

“Ezume brought your tea,” he says. “Seeing better?”

Keith nods. Lance props pillows against the bed frame for Keith to lean against once he sits up. He takes a sip of the searing tea and it instantly soothes his throat. Keith hums in delight.

“So…” Lance drums his finger against Keith’s hand. “What happened?”

Sighing, he puts his tea down on his nightstand. “Rolo happened, that’s all,” he says, voice no longer as hoarse as before.

“I’m gonna need more than that, Kano. You don’t throw punches for nothing.”

What does he tell him? That the guy that’s never liked him announced to the school he’s from the Fire Nation? That he’s a firebender and he’s right? Even without solid proof, people talk. He’s not worried about his reputation. If anything, he hopes it’s what makes the claims faulty.

“He saw us at Earth Rumble Four. I think he’s been stalking me ever since.”

“Then why didn’t you tell anybody?” Lance scoots closer to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure. Rolo was just being himself. Troublesome.”

Lance looks down at their held hands. “He said something about the Fire Nation.”

Keith doesn’t want to lie to Lance anymore. Resentment about the situation grips at him, pulling him into the dark depths of all the other secrets he’s kept. Not telling him the truth is the same as telling him lies. But he’s not ready to tell him. Not yet.

“He thinks I’m from the Fire Nation,” _You’re not lying,_ Keith reminds himself. “No biggie. Might be the hair.”

“Why does he think that?”

“Because I was able to tell Emperor Zarkon was using firebending techniques. And I punched him because, I don’t know, no one wants to be called from the Fire Nation, you know? They’re the people who came after my brother and me. We’re trying to run away from them. I’m not them.”

Lance nods. Keith can only hope he understands and look at it through his point of view. Rolo being right about him only increased his anger.

Does Keith want to run away from his roots, though?

Growing up in the Fire Nation was never dangerous. When you’re on the side of the enemy and no one is fighting them, home is safe. He remembers running through the streets when he was little and making friends. Firebending was fun and exciting and the kids would practice in the town square. The cultures and traditions were practiced and appreciated. No one hated each other. There was nothing to complain about. That was how Keith grew up—loving the nation he lived in, completely unaware of the injustices performed.

Ba Sing Se makes him miss the Fire Nation. This isn’t him. Earth Kingdom traditions, Earth Kingdom food, Earth Kingdom etiquette—it’s far from what he’s used to. What’d he do to experience another Festival of the Dragons. Even to wear _red_ again.

“Kano,” Lance says in the midst of his thoughts. Keith takes a good look at him. He’s still staring at their hands. “I know we’re not together, even though we’re always holding hands and telling each other compliments and whatnot.” Lance’s eyes dart back up to Keith’s. “But don’t I deserve to know why?”

Keith always knew it’d come down to this. Lance would eventually get curious. He prepared for this to the best of his abilities, but now it’s here, and he’s clueless.

“I said I can wait,” he continues, airless and shaky, “but each day gets harder. You said there’s problems that need to be fixed. I can help. That’s what I’m _here_ for. I want to be there for you every step of the way.”

Lance has a habit of making him feel a certain way; simultaneously _bad_ and yet cared for. Because Keith feels awful hearing him this way, holding back the pain of slow rejection, and still adamant about being by his side. It shatters his heart to pieces but Lance always glues it back together.

Lance doesn’t deserve this. Keith doesn’t deserve _him._

“I’m keeping something from you,” Keith confesses. “And I don’t want to. I really don’t want to keep anything from you, but I’m afraid and still need some time. _I’m_ not comfortable being your boyfriend and having this hidden from you.”

“Then when will you tell me?”

His luck had worn thin. Keith has drops of it left, and he’s lost too much of it today. But these last few traces of his luck are reserved for telling Lance the truth.

“I’ll be ready soon,” he promises.

The corner of Lance’s lips rise, showing a half smile. His hand cups his left cheek like it did back at the underground earthbending tournament, warm fingers softly pressing against his bruised skin. Keith leans into it, loving the feeling of Lance’s hands all over again. His thumb brushes the ridges of his black eye. Keith keeps his eyes on Lance, who’s smile grows with every breath.

Lance leans closer in and kisses his cheekbone, smiling against his skin. Keith stares wide-eyed at him and it makes Lance giggle. He adds it to the every growing stash of his laughs locked in his brain for him to remember.

 

******

 

Keith’s eye healed within two weeks, and as a treat, Lance said he’d take him on a _good_ date. One where no one is going to try to rob him, beat him up, or give him coffee to drink. They were to meet at Ba Sing Se University past midnight, when everybody is sleeping in their homes. Little Leaf was so busy that he didn’t have enough time to pick out a nicer outfit, so he’s stuck with a pear green, button up long sleeve shirt with a Mandarin collar and a pair of olive pants that balloon at his calves.

The streets are dark and gloomy, casted over in shadows and night. Not a single house light is on, making it difficult to maneuver in the city. There’s an absence of a breeze, so it’s fine that he didn’t bring a sweater, and the wind doesn’t howl like it normally does. Keith has been to Ba Sing Se University plenty of times with Allura to drop off supplies she left at work and knows the way by memory. Lance said he lives nearby the school, so there was no need to worry about him.

When Keith turns the right corner, Lance is looking down the road, waiting for him. Keith waves. The last time he saw him was Friday night, and though it’s technically Sunday morning, it feels like he hasn’t seen him in forever. They meet halfway. Lance is wearing a steel blue short sleeve shirt over a long sleeve indigo undershirt and black trousers. His hair looks like a bird’s nest. Keith combs his fingers through his wavy locks.

“Did you take a nap or something?” Keith asks.

“Yeah, I dreamed of you,” Lance sings and embraces Keith’s hands with his. “There’s no one out and I really like it.”

“Where are you taking me?”

Lance points to the right of them, where there are more streets to travel through. “Down that way, there’s a fountain that’s always packed the whole day. I’ve never been but I heard there’s a special effect that makes the whole place gleam. I want to go with you.”

“The Firelight Fountain?” Shiro’s told him of it. He and Adam used to go there a lot to feed the turtle ducks and it’s considered one of the most romantic places in the city. Of course this is the date spot Lance has chosen.

“You’ve been?”

“No, Adam and Ezume have though.”

“Well, don’t be thinking of your brother when we’re there.”

With that being said, Lance leads them down the streets and to the fountain. They walk in comfortable silence. Honestly, Keith is worried that if they talk, they’ll wake people in their homes and get yelled at. When together, Lance is bound to make Keith laugh loud and clear, and that’s not the best idea in the middle of the night.

Firelight Fountain is in a secluded circle deep in the neighborhoods of Ba Sing Se. The space isn’t that big, so Keith can understand why it gets full so easily, but right now he doesn’t get the point of it. A series of tall lamplights encircle the fountain and, floating in the water, lanterns bump into one another. At the top, a center lantern finishes the piece. None of the lights are turned on and the fountain’s water system is off. Only the luminous moon glazes over.

“Well, this is disappointing,” Lance blurts, then quickly recovers with, “but we can fix this!”

Keith blinks at him, confuzzled.

“Okay, _I_ can fix this.”

Lance lets go of Keith’s hand and steps closer to the fountain. First, he looks through the water, trying to find something, then he pushes his hands forward. Firelight Fountain springs water out from under the center lantern and cascades down. Lance looks over his shoulder and calls Keith over with his hand.

They sit on the edge of the fountain, hands not held and shoulders barely touching. Lance plays with a floating lantern and Keith observes the lamplights surrounding them. He wonders when they’re turned off. Are they ever turned on? Maybe this isn’t the place it used to be. The surrounding houses seem lifeless, curtains drawn over windows and wood chipping down to the foundation, and the turtle ducks Shiro told him about are nowhere to be seen. Maybe this part of town is abandoned.

“I thought this would be better,” Lance admits and kicks a stray rock away from his foot. “Everything’s off. I had to waterbend the fountain on. None of the lamps are on. I bet it’s pretty when they’re on because, you know, _Firelight_ Fountain. This is…” He looks around the space like he’ll find the answer pinned somewhere. “Fountain. Kind-of-Working Fountain.”

Glimpsing one last time at the lamplights, Keith takes a deep breath. “Do you trust me?”

Keith has been thinking.

He’s not good at dancing. Back home, at parties and festivals and anything that begged him to dance, he’d trip over his feet and fail to move his hips. The kids would laugh—not degradingly, but rather with him—and continue doing their thing. Keith never got better at dancing.

But he’s been dancing for three months straight in Ba Sing Se. Dancing around Lance, tiptoed feet stepping close then moving out, wanting him to pick him up and lead the way but being too shy about his skills. And still, he’s not good at dancing, not good at keeping rhythm and making moves and letting something entirely unfamiliar take over him, but if hell and heaven collided today, he’d regret never learning. Keith would regret never letting Lance put his hands on Keith’s waist and dance to the melody they created long ago.

The world’s advice has always been to do things when you’re ready. When ten-year-old Keith had to present his project on Avatar Roku, the teacher told him to begin when he was ready. When their parents left for worlds unknown, they told him and his brother to find them when they were ready. When Shiro was hesitant about speaking against the Fire Lord, his neighbor told him to do so when he was ready to face the consequences. When Keith and Shiro landed at the docks of Ba Sing Se, they agreed they would never tell their identities to anybody unless they were ready. Unless they gained enough of someone’s trust, unless they found someone who they’d risk their life for without second guess and cross deserts for.

And when Keith was upset that Shiro told his secret to someone he’d do exactly that for, Shiro assured him that he’d do the same in time when he was ready.

After outweighing the positives and negatives of revealing his true identity to Lance, he came up with three conclusions: one, Lance would leave him, but they’d still be friends, because Lance isn’t an evil person who’d keep him hanging like that. Two, Lance would decide he couldn’t be with someone like Keith and never talk to him again, which seems very unlike him, but Keith isn’t taking any chances. Three, nothing changes, but that too seems impossible because there’s bound to be change at any given time. There’s going to be _some_ kind of negative in each scenario, he just hasn’t figured it out for the last one.

So Keith’s been thinking he’s had enough. Another day gone by where the truth doesn’t spill is another day his luck diminishes. Keeping anything from Lance is difficult because Keith wants to give him everything he asks for, because he’s terrible at denying anything from Lance and if he does so any longer, it’ll wear him thin. Lance deserves an explanation.

“Always have,” Lance answers, no semblance of doubt in his words, and Keith begs every greater being in the spirit world and on that that doesn’t change.

Keith stands straight, feet stuck together and arms by his side. He hasn’t done any intense firebending in forever, but turning on a few dozens lanterns is an easy task. Punching the air, a flame bursts from his fist and flies to the first lamplight. Exhilaration flickers at the ends of his knuckles, smirk changing his nervous expression and fueling his every desire to _bend._ He sets the next light on fire, and the next and the next until he’s made a full circle around. Then he looks to the lanterns floating in the water and sends a spark through his fingertips, setting each one aflame until he’s reached the last one at the top, shining the brightest among them all. Now, soft orange light reflects along the water and ravages the dim, empty space like the sun.

The jubilance of it all dissipates when his eyes land on Lance’s blank face. No sneer or decadent rise of his lips, unreadable eyes that glow auburn red, completely still body language that Keith isn’t fluent in.

Panic settles deep in Keith’s gut and bones and heart, stirring a poisonous concoction of terror and hysteria. Lance’s eyes follow his timid movement back towards him. Unsure of whether to sit next to him or run away, Keith nervously stands instead, shoes nailed into the concrete below.

“My name isn’t Kano,” he starts off, sounding trepidant and stressed. Lance raises an eyebrow. “And I’m not from the Northern Water Tribe. I’m not who you think I am. I’m-I’m a firebender and was born and raised in Capital City. In the Fire Nation which, I know, isn’t _good._ ” He shuts his eyes, afraid to look at Lance any longer. “We escaped because I attacked and burned the soldiers who were coming to kill my brother for speaking against the Fire Lord. We ended up in Ba Sing Se and had to create new identities because we knew that no matter where we went, we’d be kicked out and turned in if we kept out Fire Nation names and story. My own nation turned its back on me and now I'm living a lie and I hate lies, Lance, I hate them more than anything but I need to tell them to survive. And it takes me time to trust and tell this truth but ever since I met you, I’ve wanted to let you know. I've always wanted to tell you so many times. I want us to be together but I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’ll turn your back on me too because firebenders have hurt so many people, have hurt your sister and burned your home and _I’m_ that. You don't need to hold onto someone who carries that in their blood. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s probably best for you to not have me in your life with that fact laid out because who knows when this will all end? Who knows when my people will stop? But I can't keep this from you anymore. And if you don't want anything to do with me, then just say so.”

Keith counts the seconds of silence. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

All of a sudden, his pinkie is interlaced with none other than Lance’s. Keith parts his eyes open and gazes down at Lance, blazing orange light prancing over his delicate skin and mirroring beautifully on the jewels of his eyes. A natural smile that battles the fire he created overtakes his plump lips and Keith swears all the pieces in his life come together at this moment, at this rare second in his eighteen years, and everything begins to make sense.

“So what’s your name?” Lance asks, light and breezy like a summer’s day.

“Keith.”

It feels damn good to say it now. The way the name makes Lance’s smile tug further back puts him in the clouds. Lance stands up and steps close to him, shirts skimming against one another and noses almost touching. His eyes flicker up to look at Keith and he thinks this might be his favorite spectacle of the day. Not the water flowing behind them or the fire lighting the place—no, here, in this tiny sliver of space between them.

“Keith,” Lance repeats, breathless but rooted in the ground beneath them. Keith nearly loses his balance at the way he says it because it’s said with more care and heart and meaning and life and _love_ than Kano ever held, ever weighted, and it’s really him. It’s really his name that produces that kind of response and the tiny figure in his head, the one stuck between the words like and love, dashes past love and keeps on running and running. “Keith, this doesn’t change a thing.”

His hands grip onto Lance’s waist, keeping him still in this proximity and lavishing in the heat it makes. This is still too good to be true, too good to be real in the dead of the night on a Sunday morning in the middle of a war but he knows it’s absolute because he’s here, right here, living in the moment and nothing is going wrong.

“Kano is—Kano _was_ me. He just isn’t—”

“I know the real you,” Lance affirms, caressing his cheek like it’s second nature. “I still love you, Keith.”

Control, as he knows, is hard for him to have. Keith’s impulsive, jumps to conclusions, hesitant in the worst ways, and acts before he thinks. Fire Nation thing, perhaps, and as much as he hates the place, there’s some gifts he can’t take for granted.

Lack of control forces Keith to close the space between their lips, eyelids slipping shut and fingers pressing harder into Lance. The hand on his cheek moves back and tangles in his raven hair as the other finds its way to the nape of his neck. Lance pulls away for a second to catch his breath and Keith goes in again, water clashing with fire, open-mouthed and wanting so bad, wanting for so _long._ How could Keith ever deny this pleasure?

_Never again,_ his thoughts rumble.

Vanilla moans against his lips heightens every sense in his body and Keith does everything in his power to hear it again. As his lips ghost over his jaw, leaving chaste kisses along the line, Lance happily hums against his ear and says his name like it’s the only one he knows.

“ _Keith._ ”

It has his hands clamoring under Lance’s shirt and traveling the expanse of warm tan skin below his fingertips. It has him pressing tender kisses along the juncture of his neck, savoring the salty sweet taste of it. It has him wondering if he wants anyone to ever find out his name is Keith—that he should reserve his real name for Lance’s lips and only Lance’s lips. A selfish thought, a greedy idea, but he likes it a lot. The rest of the world can call him Kano. Lance can keep whispering his real name into his ear, telling it to his world.

Lance guides Keith’s mouth back to his, licking past the seams of his lips and gently pulling at his hair. Keith presses them closer together, needing every inch of their bodies touching because this is them making up for lost time. This is Keith apologizing with actions rather than words. This is his luck refilling into a jar and closing the lid tight, tight, tight.

“I love you,” Keith says back, lips hovering over Lance’s, ready to dive back in at a moment’s notice.

A laugh bubbles out of Lance. His fingers massage the back of Keith’s head where he may have pulled too hard in the heat of it all. “A waterbender and a firebender, huh?”

“Unconventional, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.” Keith nuzzles his nose against Lance’s. “You’re the only one that knows. I could get thrown out or even killed for being a firebender. I showed you because I trust you more than anyone.”

“I can keep a secret, _Kano._ ” Lance mutters, “Huh, don’t really like calling you that anymore.”

“You’re used to Kano, don’t worry about it.”

Lance leaves a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “You’re Keith when it’s just us two. Really dig that. I get you all to myself.”

“Well, Ezume too.”

“Didn’t I tell you _not_ to think about your brother?”

Keith chuckles and dreamily sighs. “Been doing a lot of what I shouldn’t.”

Lance brings his palm back to Keith’s cheek, rubbing circles over his cheekbone. “When the Avatar stops Ozai and this petty war ends, you’re free. You can be yourself and not live in fear. Firebend to your heart’s content. I saw how happy you looked to be in your element and I want that for you, Keith. So even if you have to hide your true self from the world, you don’t have to hide it from me.”

And Keith knows, right then and there, that he’ll never be loved like the way Lance loves him. Another hundred year war can begin, Firelord Ozai can reign supreme, and the Avatar can be reborn, but Lance will still be by his side when the darkest corners of the earth fall over the nations. Lance will still say his name—his _real_ name—like it’s the sun the keeps the planets aligned and make the trees grow high.

 

******

 

The war ended the summer they got together. Ba Sing Se celebrated with festivals and Earth Kingdom traditions, but Keith and Lance celebrated differently.

First, they visited the Southern Water Tribe. The villages were coming up well and united. Keith watched Lance bend with others like him, tell stories from time’s past, launch snowballs at one another until the moon rose into the sky. Lance loved it there, but snuggled up against Keith’s chest in their igloo, cozy against the furry blankets, he told him he’s moved on. The Southern Water Tribe will always be where he began, but not where he’ll live out his days. Keith kissed him goodnight and later that week, they said goodbye one last time.

Then, they visited the Fire Nation with Adam and Shiro. Expecting it to be gloomy and up in revolution, they walked into the Festival of Dragons Keith missed so dearly. The dancers hidden under the mask of the dragon soared down the streets as confetti littered the spaces between the cobblestone and music blasted at every corner. His home had returned and was no longer under the rule of a monarch. He showed Lance around, tricked him into eating the spiciest treats, and managed to find one kind of tea he likes (barley tea, of _all_ teas in the world). But in the comforts of his old home, wrapped in Lance’s arm as they rested on his childhood bed, he too knew this wasn’t for him. That as much as he longed to experience home once again, this wasn’t where he wanted to spend the rest of his days. Lance caressed his cheek and later that week, they said goodbye one last time.

Lastly, they visited the brand new Republic City. A safe haven for all those who are lost and find themselves no place to go. A city that welcomes all those from different nations and backgrounds. Keith and Lance became enamored with Republic City. Modern and chic, innovative and sophisticated, diverse and welcoming. It felt like a place Keith and Lance, firebender and waterbender, could live to their fullest extent. On the last day of their trip, lazily kissing on the couch in their hotel room, they decided they’d come back some day. They fell asleep and in the morning, they said their goodbye with a promise of return.

Now, Keith and Lance run a successful cafe in the heart of Republic City named Jar of Luck. It’s small, but because the people of Republic City are always moving, no one but students really stick around. The homey decor mix of Fire Nation and Southern Water Tribe accessories with bits and pieces of Ba Sing Se here and there make the shop one of a kind. Southerners come flocking to their shop to have a sip of Lance’s delicious coffee and try Keith’s delectable teas. Arguably, they’re the ones that brought coffee to the rest of the world. Loyal customers switch between ordering coffee and tea every time they come in.

All charges against Keith and Shiro were dropped when the war ended. At last, they were free from the chains that strained them to Ba Sing Se. Shiro and Adam got hitched immediately after, to no one’s surprise, and decided to stay in Ba Sing Se to run Little Leaf. Keith, however, didn’t want to spend another second in the city, and luckily Lance agreed. His leave from the tea shop left many customers in tears and Keith even let himself cry on Lance’s shoulder in his dim bedroom. Little Leaf was his life, his passions, and he was leaving it behind, but he knew he had to move on to bigger things.

So, he proposed to Lance at Firelight Fountain the night before they were to leave Ba Sing Se. He set the lamplights on fire again and got a random waterbender to bend the fountain on beforehand. And Lance said yes with the flames reflected in the water mirrored in his glassy eyes, and they kissed like it was the first time all over again.

Ever since they got married, Lance switched his cheek-caressing hand from right to left because he likes seeing the golden ring gleam against Keith’s pale skin. Their wedding wasn’t grand and extravagant, just a small ceremony on the beach with Lance and Keith’s immediate family and good friends. Lance, who used to live surrounded by snow and below freezing temperatures, had fallen in love with the beach after they left Ba Sing Se and traveled around the world. Said he loved the feeling of sand under his feet, the ways the waves clashed—all at once, then rippled back—and the sweet sun rays that pricked his skin the genial way acupuncture does. The beach reminded Keith of his Fire Nation home, and if Lance loved it, then he could learn to re-love it again. Just for him.

Keith loves when they close shop. It means he gets some time alone with Lance, the man he gets to call his husband, and can kiss him senseless with no one to catch them.

“We have to get home,” Lance giggles against Keith’s lips. He’s leaning with his back against the counter as Keith peppers quick kisses all over his face, hands slipped under the hem of Lance’s shirt. “Last time we were late, Veronica made me pay her. As my sister, her services are free.”

“Then I’ll pay her.” Keith moves up his jaw and down his slender neck, biting the soft skin then soothing it over with wet kisses. Lance hums contently, but lightly pushes him away. Keith pouts and Lance kisses the bottom lip that juts out.

“Later. In a bed, preferably. The cable cars will get full if we don’t hurry.”

Before Lance goes to lock the back door, Keith interlocks their pinkies. Years later, they still do this, even though their relationship is public. It still feels so intimate, so _them._ “Promise?”

Lance nods. “Promise.”

After locking the front of the shop, Keith and Lance walk hand in hand to their cable car stop. It arrives right as they do, meaning they’ll get home within fifteen minutes rather than the usual thirty. Lance grabs a newspaper before they sit down and starts flipping through. Others file into the car and sit, some staring out into nothing, some trying to read what’s on Lance’s newspaper.

“I found a preschool nearby that Honerva recommended,” Keith says. “Thought we’d go check it out tomorrow.”

“Is it bender friendly?”

“It’s bender-only.”

Lance clicks his tongue. “Those people don’t know what they signed up for. Our girl’s a supernova in the making.”

“A supernova that needs to start her education in the fall.”

Sighing, Lance rests his head on Keith’s shoulder. “I know, I just don’t like the fact that she’s growing up. Let me be a sad dad.”

Keith huffs out a laugh and kisses the top of his head. Living with Lance like this is a breeze. Working together can sometimes be a pain, especially when it comes to budgeting, but forgiveness is easy when they’ve been doing it since they were teens stuck in the walls of Ba Sing Se. A few kissing sessions and time with their daughter heals all wounds.

Silently reading along with Lance makes the time go by faster. Before they know it, they’re at their stop and home is a couples houses down. Lance leaves the newspaper in the cable car for the next person to read then holds Keith’s hand once again. Their neighborhood is quaint and clean. Not a single front yard has a gate around it and those with grass have taken great care of it, keeping it green twenty-four-seven.

Keith and Lance are walking up the pathway to their home when the door flies open. Amita, their daughter, stands in the doorway, tight black curls bundled on her head, wearing a crimson dress shirt with a black belt tied over her tummy and grey leggings on her stubby legs.

Adopting a child was the best choice they ever made together. Moving in together, becoming boyfriends, getting married, opening a cafe—the joy of all that combined could never beat out the absolute serenity and raw, bursting happiness of having a daughter running around their house. Amita was a baby when they brought her home, and as first time parents, they obviously had trouble and confusion about the whole thing, but it brought Keith and Lance closer than ever before. Waking up in the middle of the night to Lance tiredly singing a lullaby in their room, Amita in his arms, gradually falling back to sleep. Keith laying on top of Lance on the couch, baby snoring against his chest and shedding a tear at how incredibly _perfect_ it all is. A new rhythm was created to dance to and this time there’s a little firebending supernova holding their hands.

“Hi baby!” Lance says, walking faster up the path to get to Amita. She stops before the stairs, as if thinking she should give them a try, then takes a tentative step down but loses her balance. Lance swoops in just in time, right before she falls face first, and lifts her in the air high above his head, eliciting contagious laughter out of her. Keith drops a quick kiss on her chubby cheek and they walk into their home.

Home is small but spacious—two bedrooms, a joint living and dining space, and a kitchen to the right side. Their backyard is big enough for Lance’s gigantic family gatherings. The yellow walls are chipping at the corners and last time Keith checked, they still have to replace a moldy piece of wooden floor from the rainfall earlier that month, but besides that? He wouldn’t change a thing.

“She almost burned the carpet,” Veronica says from the kitchen, glasses on top of her head and a streak of green paint dried on her cheek.

“That’s my girl.” Lance rubs his nose against hers and her stout palms pat his cheeks.

Lance puts Amita down on the floor and joins his sister in the kitchen. Amita waddles up to Keith, amber eyes looking up to him, and raises her arms. She opens her palms and a tiny fire bursts from them, distinguished a second later.

When Amita was born, they weren’t sure whether she was a bender or not. It was never specified and no one could be sure until she was at least two years old, but Lance and Keith could care less if she was a bender or not. The second her eyes opened and stared at Keith and Lance, who weren’t sure about who to take home with them, then giggled, their mind was made up. She was the one.

Keith still hates lying, so he’s not going to lie about being ecstatic when he found out Amita was a firebender. They were drawing animals on paper when it happened. She showed her dad her drawing of an elephant mouse, then it lit in flames when she folded it up. Amita cried about it, and Keith had to console her like the capital-G Good parent he is, but deep down inside, he was celebrating and couldn’t wait to teach her more.

It meant a lot to him. The short but life-changing year he had to pretend he wasn’t a firebender made him feel less of himself. Even after the war ended, people were still wary of firebenders, afraid they’d be physically hurt by them if they got too close. Sometimes Keith wished he wasn’t a firebender, that Avatar Aang would stop on by and remove his bending too, but Lance would always talk him out of it because it was only temporary. The less he hid himself, the more accepting the world would have to be. Now they live in a world where he doesn’t have to hide himself anymore. Firebenders banded together in the Republic City, and of course there’s the casual opposition of them to this day, but they’re still bending to their heart’s content. Keith’s proud to say he’s a firebender. Amita gets to be raised in a world different from his, where no one can shut her down for being able to tame the most dangerous element of all. No tyrant poisons the meaning of her abilities. Keith doesn’t hide it, especially now with his daughter.

Keith picks her up and takes her outside to the back. The sun is setting past the mountains that separate Republic City from the Earth Kingdom, streaks of salmon pink and honey yellow painted over the sky. Their backyard is mostly dirt, save for the wooden patio they stopped working on once Amita came home. Before then, he didn’t spend a lot of time in the back, but when she learned to walk, Amita loved griming her shoes up and rolling around in the dirt. Laundry was awful and they had to get her out of that habit as soon as possible. It was the day she walked outside and saw Keith practicing his firebending that he realized she loved watching him more playing in the dirt.

“Fire time,” she says in her squeaky voice, the one that makes Keith’s heart warm like it’s in front of a hearth.

“Yeah, fire,” he repeats, walking down the steps of the patio and over to the dirt. He kicks at the air, holding Amita close with both hands, and a flame torches from the bottom of his foot. She giggles and claps her hands together, squealing gleefully. “Okay, try this with me.”

Keith extends his hand, palm facing out, and another fire blazes from his body. Amita mimics his movement, but nothing comes out. She frowns and does it again, but gets the same result. Repeatedly, she presses her palm to the air, waiting for something, _anything_ to show up. Not wanting to laugh and make his little girl feel bad, he kisses her cheek to stop himself.

“Don’t worry about it Amita.”

“I wanna try,” Amita whines, still trying to copy her daddy. Out of frustration, she turns her hand into a fist and punches the air.

A flame the size of a boulder erupts from her chubby fist and blasts toward the oak tree at the edge of their yard. The leaves set on fire and, slowly but surely, it spreads up the branches. Keith stares wide-eyed and in awe at his daughter’s—yeah, _his_ daughter’s—work. He couldn’t manage to make a flame that size until he was about twelve, but here’s his girl doing it at three.

Amita cheers, “Fire!”

The backyard door busts open. Lance and Veronica walk out together, her with a bucket in hand, and examine the scenario. Keith and Amita look at them.

“Fire,” Keith laughs, pointing at the tree. Lance, disappointed more than anything, shakes his head and bends the water out of the bucket, putting out the fire from the tree.

“Water!” Amita points out, mimicking the wave-like motions of her dad’s arms.

Lance stomps up to his husband and daughter, brows furrowed together, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I told you to be careful with the fire, Keith.”

“Not me,” he defends and bobs his head to Amita. “Our little supernova.”

Lance looks between the two of them, then back at the burnt black oak tree, then back to them. “ _Amita_ did this?”

“Fire!” she cheers and claps again.

Lance’s expression shifts from concern to pure excitement. His hands come up to pinch Amita’s chipmunk cheeks and he kisses her forehead.

“You’re so amazing! I love you! Oh my God!” Lance lands one on Keith as well, right on his lips, long and languid and every time he does, Keith falls for him all over again.

“So you two aren’t, like, worried?” Veronica shouts from the patio. She drops the bucket and it clunks against the wood. “Your three year old daughter just set a tree on fire. A really nice tree too, I liked that tree.”

“So talented!” Lance squeals and pokes her flat nose.

“She started firebending a year ago!”

Keith glares at Veronica. “So. Talented.”

Veronica shrugs and walks up to them to say goodbye to only Amita, then leaves their house. Keith goes back inside to cook dinner and Lance sits on the couch with their supernova on his lap, reading the first of many books she got as gifts on her birthday. He tends to tune in to the radio when he’s cooking, but when Lance and Amita are just in the other room—his silly husband creating odd accents and saying every word with weird unnecessary emphasis, his bright daughter’s laughter echoing through the walls—the simplest pleasures come from hearing them together.

“Then, Appa landed on the ice and said,”—Lance changes his voice to a low gruff—“‘I want to play in the water too!’ The tiger seal laughed.”—Lance changes his voice to a high-pitch yelp—“‘Then come on in!’”

“But Appa furry.”

“Well, that never stopped anyone.”

Quietly, in the midst of all the love and happiness Keith’s had these past seven years, he thinks his luck is still shut tight, deep in the back of his mind, and the universe hasn’t broken the glass yet. The jar is squished between the stash of Lance’s laughs he’s locked up over the years and the brand new collection of Amita’s laughs. And maybe someday, when another war is on the brink, when a love of his disappears from his reach, when something terribly wrong happens, the universe will smash it open with a hammer and it’ll run wild, but for now, he’s okay. He’s got the loves of his life cuddled up on the couch a few feet away and he’s making them dumplings. Their house is standing and their little girl is growing up. The oak tree in the back is thoroughly burned, but they win some and they lose some. Keith’s got his love.

After dinner, Amita must go to bed. For her to quickly go to sleep, there must be a performance. Keith narrates another one of the many, many books she got—really, she doesn’t need this many books, she can’t read yet—and Lance has to act it out. Tonight, he’s reading “Love Amongst the Dragons,” a Fire Nation classic and one Keith saw performed thousands of times at the local theater in Capital City. Lance, however, has never even heard of it, so both him and Amita are having a blast watching him try.

“Noren dives into the Spirit World, looking for the Dark Water Spirit that cursed him many years ago,” Keith reads, glancing between the pages and Lance.

Pretending to dive, he clasps his hands high above his head, arms straight, and jumps, bending his knees to illude he’s gone under. Just as Amita crawls to the end of her bed to look for her dad, Lance pops up and pretends to look around for the Dark Water Spirit.

“The Spirit World is dark and scary.” Keith makes spooky noises for added effect and Lance jolts at the sound, frightened in the world. Amita joins in and howls like a wolf in Lance’s ear.

“What a scary sound!” Lance exasperates, dramatically putting the back of his hand against his forehead. Amita laughs and falls back into bed, howling and howling until her eyes begin to close. Both Keith and Lance watch her, softly lowering their voice, and wait until she’s fallen asleep. Lance tucks her in and Keith puts away the book.

“You like it?” Keith asks as Lance kisses Amita goodnight.

“Absolutely not,” he answers, moving back so Keith can give her a goodnight kiss too. “So hard to act out. Was that your bedtime story growing up?”

“Maybe.” Keith takes Lance’s hand, his ring cool against his bare skin, and leads him out her bedroom, turning the light off before leaving the door halfway open. “People always wanted to be casted as Noren.”

“No one should want to be in that play.”

Keith rolls his eyes as they enter their bedroom. Their bedroom is always fiercely colder than the rest of the house, but the bed is temperate and welcoming. Looking at it, pale duvets made neatly, he’s reminded of today’s promise.

The second he closes the door behind him, Keith captures Lance’s rosy lips in his, palms cradling his jaw and brushing back to his hair. Sparks still fly the way they did back in Ba Sing Se. Lance’s muted yelp turns soft and vibrates through him, awakening every drained muscle in his body, and he eagerly responds to every push further into his mouth. Needing to catch his breath, Keith follows the trail he left from earlier—up his jaw, down his neck. His fingers stroke down his back until they slide perfectly into the divots on Lance’s hips, carved and fabricated just for Keith.

“I figured you wouldn’t forget the promise,” Lance comments, short-winded but excited and everything Keith loves to hear.

“Wouldn’t forget it for the world,” he mumbles into his exposed collarbone.

“You’re not tired?”

Keith abruptly stops. He straightens back up and searches Lance’s sapphire eyes, a bit hooded but possible it might just be Keith’s fault. “We don’t have to do this.”

“That’s not it, Keith, it’s just—” Lance wraps his arms over Keith’s shoulders, fingertips lightly grazing the hollow space between his shoulder blades, “you’re really _not_ tired?”

“Not when I’m with you.”

A deep blush mingles over Lance’s cheeks and it’s more than likely that Keith displays a matching one. But it’s true, Keith has a plethora of energy swimming through his veins whenever he’s with Lance. One look from him and Keith’s running. Running until he wins the race and he always does, always will as long as Lance gives him the trophy at the finish line.

“I _did_ promise,” Lance reasons, looking to the ceiling and biting his lower lip to taunt his husband no doubt.

“Just say the word,” Keith whispers and can’t help but smile like a fool, smile like it’s the one thing he wants his lips to do other than kiss the man he once considered a recipe for disaster, “and I’m all yours, Lance.”

And sometimes, in the heat of the moment, no words have to be said. Sometimes a tight grasp to Keith’s wrist, guiding him where Lance wants him to be, is enough of a message. Sometimes a smile pressed into his skin tells Keith everything he needs to know. Regardless, he wants to make sure, _needs_ to make sure Lance wants this as much as he does.

“I’m so in love with you,” Lance says into the centimeters between them, confession fanning over Keith’s dewy face. Lance, dreamy and dazed, looking at Keith like he’s what keeps this bedroom warm and gravitates them down to earth.

“Still?” Keith jokes, smile crooked and teasing.

Lance kisses his upturned lips. “Still.”

No matter how many times he says it, no matter how used to hearing it he is, the words make his stomach twist and the butterflies flutter. When they were younger, Keith doubted the validity of them. Because, still, who could ever love Keith? Keith, with a hidden identity, with a lie shielding him, with an uncontrollable impulse, with the fire of his nation releasing from his body in a whim. Who could ever love that?

The answer is always Lance. The annoyingly cute boy with a string of patience following him around. The waterbender who lets his husband show his flame and knows when to put it out, knows when to ice it over and ease his worry. The man who chose to start a family with him, who put a shiny golden ring on his left hand and stares at it whenever he can.

“I’m in love with you too.”

For only the first time tonight, Lance brings his left hand to Keith’s cheek and caresses his cheekbone. The cold metal almost stings against his skin but alleviates any pain he’s ever had.

Lance smirks. “Prove it.”

Keith starts slow this time, quietly slipping past Lance’s lips and pulling them back between his teeth, because if he’s going to prove it, he’s going to do so gradually. He’s going to show him his love like he’s got all the time in the world, like his jar of luck is made of steel and will never even dent. Lance deserves this, after all. Lance deserves to know that with every second and breath and heartbeat, Keith helplessly falls for him. Nothing's holding him back anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> ok but a quick shoutout to the people at avatar wikia?????? this fic would be nothing without yall ilysm muah
> 
> hehehe that shit was cute tho huh [insert fist emoji here]  
> as usual, comments and kudos are _greeeaaaatttllllyyyy_ appreciated!! if you liked this fic, share it with your friends and take a look at my other works!! i love klance sm lmao,, i had fun writing it since atla is my fave show ever and i actually like writing these aus?? so maybe expect more soon depends on my mood ya know ;)
> 
> again, none of the works in this collection are connected, they're all just heavily based on songs i listened to for hours while writing dsjhfsfdlkf
> 
> you can find me at my socials!  
> twitter: [@riverdancee](twitter.com/riverdancee)  
> tumblr: [riverdancee](riverdancee.tumblr.com)


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